|Bi||li|i  Key 


LOS  ANGELES 

STATE  NORMAL  SCHOOL 

LIBRARY 


By  Ellen  Key 

The  Century  of  the  Child 

The  Education  of  the  Child 

Love  and  Marriage 

The  Woman  Movement 

Rahel  Varnhagen 

The  Renaissance  of  Motherhood 

The  Younger  Generation 


The 
Younger    Generation 


By 
Ellen   Key 


Translated  from  the  Swedish  by 
Arthur  G.  Chater 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New   York  and  London 

Ube  Knickerbocker  press 
1914 

•ifl 


COPYRIGHT,  1914 

BY 
ELLEN   KEY 


Ubc  Untcherbocftcr  Drew,  1Uv>  Borh 


Ha 
m 


CO 

HJALMAR  BRANTING 

AND 

CARL  LINDHAGEN 

IN  SYMPATHY   AND  ADMIRATION 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — WHAT  THE  AGE  OFFERS  AND  EXPECTS 

OF  YOUTH        .....        3 

II. — ASSOCIATED      ACTIVITY     AND     SELF- 
CULTURE         25 

III. — THE  PEACE  PROBLEM         ...      59 

IV. — YOUTH,  WOMAN,  AND  ANTIMILITARISM  .       95 

V.— "CLASS  BADGES"       .         .         .         .115 

VI. — THE  CHILDREN'S  CHARTER         .         .131 

VII. — RECREATIVE  CULTURE        .         .         .     137 

VIII. — THE  FEW  AND  THE  MANY         .        .189 


I 

WHAT  THE  AGE  OFFERS  AND  EXPECTS  OF  YOUTH 


WHAT  THE  AGE  OFFERS  AND  EXPECTS  OF  YOUTH 

A  MONO  the  empty  sayings,  which  constitute 
**  at  least  half  our  stock  of  opinions,  is  this : 
that  early  youth  is  life's  happiest  time.  On 
the  contrary — setting  aside  exceptions — the 
age  between,  say,  fifteen  and  twenty-five  is 
probably  that  during  which  the  majority  of 
people  suffer  most.  Not  from  this  or  that 
great  sorrow,  for  such  experiences  usually 
come  upon  us  in  later  years.  But  every 
young  person  who  can  both  think  and  feel — 
and  it  is  only  to  such  that  I  speak — suffers 
during  those  years  from  the  sorrows  inherent 
in  existence  to  a  degree  never  reached  in  later 
life. 

Their  elders  seldom  take  the  sufferings  of 
the  young  seriously ;  they  see  in  them  the  inev- 
itable storms  of  the  vernal  equinox  and  rightly 
lay  stress  upon  the  great,  the  immeasurable 
good  fortune  of  youth — that  of  having  one's 
life  before  one.  It  is  true,  the  young  com- 

3 


4  The  Younger  Generation 

plain  of  having  "their  whole  long  life  before 
them,  to  suffer  in."  But  soon  from  their 
subconscious  ego  wells  up  the  triumphing, 
jubilant  knowledge  of  being  still  in  the  morn- 
ing of  life,  of  having,  in  fact,  a  whole  long  day 
before  them.  In  this  glad  knowledge  dwells 
a  power  to  heal  even  the  heaviest  sorrows. 
Perhaps  it  is  just  because  the  old  are  aware 
that  life  stands  smiling,  with  her  arms  full 
of  gifts,  before  the  youth — who  himself  sees 
nothing,  since  he  weeps  with  his  head  in  his 
hands — that  these  old  ones  take  the  sorrows 
of  the  young  more  lightly  than  they  ought, 
the  old  are  apt  to  forget  the  capacity  for 

uffering  in  the  young,  which  is  great  enough 
to  quench  even  the  will  to  live  and  to  drive 
a  young  man  to  his  death  for  what  others  call 
a-  trifle.  ") 

vDuring  the  years  we  are  considering,  the 
young  are  often  called  upon  to  solve  their 
most  difficult  personal  problems — those  of 
religious  belief,  of  the  choice  of  a  career,  of 
love — with  all  the  possibilities  of  conflict 
and  pain  that  these  problems  involve^)  But 
even  Supposing  these  problems  to  be  easily 
solved,  every  young  person  has  to  bear  the 
burden — heavier  in  proportion  as  the  indi- 
viduality is  richer — of  accommodating  him- 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth      5 

self  to  existence,  now  that  it  is  no  longer  seen 
with  the  eyes  of  a  child,  the  eyes  to  which 
everything  is  as  it  should  be. 

Doubtful,  groping,  misunderstood,  misun- 
derstanding, the  young  are  tormented  by 
their  own  ego ;  by  the  errors  of  others  concern- 
ing that  ego;  by  the  disproportion  between 
their  ideal  longings  and  their  weak  actions; 
by  the  labour  of  creating  a  will  for  themselves, 
of  forming  opinions  and  shaping  a  mode  of 
life:  that  is,  on  the  one  hand,  an  external 
attitude,  a  code  of  manners;  on  the  other,  a 
personal  culture,  a  well-defined  individuality. 

Even  if  we  leave  on  one  side  the  meta- 
physical problems  of  being,  there  remain 
difficulties  enough  in  all  the  problems  of  human 
intercourse,  against  which  youth  runs  its  head 
from  the  moment  it  begins  to  discover  the 
cracks  behind  the  fine  facades,  the  lofty 
walls  that  shelter  abuses,  the  rag-shops  that 
bear  the  sign-boards  of  social  advantage. 

The  young  man  who  broods  over  these 
things  is  called  by  his  neighbours  insufferable, 
revolutionary,  discordant.  But  we  might  as 
well  expect  a  correct  attitude  of  such  a^  young 
man  as  of  the  inhabitants  of  Messina,  when 
they  were  hurled  by  the  earthquake  from  the 
fifth  floor  into  the  basement.  The  whole  of 


6  The  Younger  Generation 

existence  rocks  about  these  young  people; 
everything  seems  to  them  insane,  devoid  of 
plan,  rotten,  empty.  If  they  disclose  their 
feelings,  the  usual  answer  is:  "Such  is  life; 
one  must  accept  the  inevitable  and  conform  to 
reality." 

Some  of  them  follow  the  advice,  harden  their 
hearts,  and  endeavour  for  their  own  part  to  get 
as  much  as  possible  out  of  life.  Others  are 
landed  in  scepticism,  avenge  themselves  by 
satire,  and  proclaim  that  this  is  the  only  "in- 
telligent and  noble  attitude."  Others  again 
declare  a  proud  and  gloomy  despair  to  be  the 
"heroic"  bearing. 

I  consider,  however,  that  the  strongest  finally 
arrive  at  the  only  position  which  is  worthy 
of  a  thinking  and  feeling  human  being:  the 
position  of  the  youth  in  Klinger's  etching, 
who  raises  his  care-worn  face  and  his  clenched 
hands  to  heaven  with  the  cry:  "And  yet/  In 
spite  of  all  I  will  not  let  myself  be  vanquished ; 
in  spite  of  all,  this  existence,  when  I  leave  it, 
shall  be  changed  in  some  respect.  Even  if 
they  are  right  who  say  that  life  is  not  good, 
why  have  I  entered  life  unless  to  make  it 
better?" 

But  a  young  man  who  has  arrived  at  this 
point  may  be  confronted  in  very  various  ways 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth      7 

by  the  time  he  lives  in.  One  age  is  poor  in 
ideas  and  problems,  another  rich.  Many 
lives,  abounding  in  possibilities,  have  ended 
in  futility,  because  the  young,  with  then- 
strong  desire  of  achievement,  their  seething 
powers,  have  found  themselves  in  an  age  that 
demanded  of  them  nothing  more  than — a 
good  university  degree ! 

Such  an  age  existed  all  over  Europe  in  the 
middle  of  last  century.  The  young  man  who 
then  entered,  for  instance,  upon  university 
life,  did  not  encounter  there  any  rallying 
movement  of  the  young,  nor  again  did  he 
meet  with  any  of  the  currents  of  ideas  that 
directed  his  own  life.  ^  Heavy  drinking  was 
thought  the  sign  of  manliness,  and  the  fresh- 
man was  warned  against  sexual  abstinence — 
for  "the  reward  of  virtue"  was  physical  and 
mental  disorder ."\Nothing  was  said  about  the 
education  received  by  the  student  involving 
any  social  duty  beyond  that  of  becoming  a 
serviceable  State  official.  Those  were  the 
days  when  even  thoughtful  men  dismissed 
Darwinism  with  a  joke  about  our  grandfather 
the  ape  and  socialism  with  cheap  phrases  to 
the  effect  that,  if  everything  were  equally 
divided  to-day,  some  would  have  drunk  their 
share  by  to-morrow! 


8  The  Younger  Generation 

Then  came  the  'eighties,  with  lively  dis- 
cussion of  the  problems  of  European  civilisa- 
tion ;  with  burning  zeal  for  freedom  of  thought 
and  speech ;  with  the  education  of  the  people, 
regarded  as  the  task  of  the  young,  now 
awakened  to  a  social  sense.  Then  came 
the  scientific  temperance  movement,  sexual 
enlightenment,  and  social  enlightenment; 
through  all  of  which  youth  has  now  received 
in  full  measure  from  our  time  what  youth 
above  all  needs — knowledge  and  aims. 

No  doubt  many  a  young  man  may  still  be 
found  who  considers  "living  his  life"  to  mean 
poisoning  himself  with  alcohol  and  sexual 
excesses.  But  no  one  can  now  make  the 
excuse  that  he  has  not  been  taught  what  this 
leads  to.  No  doubt  many  a  young  man  may 
still  be  found  without  a  sense  of  social  respon- 
sibility. But  no  one  can  make  the  excuse 
that  he  has  lacked  reminders  on  this  subject. 
Nowadays,  while  still  at  school,  boys  and 
girls  acquire  a  knowledge  of  their  civil  rights 
and  duties  and  receive  instruction  in  social 
problems. 

Indeed,  our  age  gives  the  more  receptive 
among  the  young  such  a  sense  of  social  respon- 
sibility that  one  is  inclined  at  times  to  fear 
that  social  interests  may  encroach  upon 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth      9 

individual  development,  that  a  knowledge  of 
all  the  ills  affecting  the  community  may  act 
as  too  powerful  a  damper  on  the  joys  of  youth. 
For  youth  is  truly  light-hearted  only  so  long 
as  it  can  forget  all  "questions"  for  the 
moment. 

The  most  serious  among  the  young  have 
eagerly  hearkened  to  the  demands  of  the  time. 
The  work  of  popular  education,  the  temper- 
ance movement,  the  peace  movement,  are  to  a 
great  extent  carried  on  by  the  young.  Their 
meetings  show  that  the  young  understand 
one  of  their  tasks,  that  of  bringing  together  the 
different  classes  through  social  intercourse. 

However  we  may  compare  the  present  state 
of  things  with  that  of  forty  years  ago,  the 
comparison  proves  that  our  time  has  given 
youth  weapons  and  implements  that  it  pre- 
viously lacked.  Until  our  day,  earnest  Christ- 
ians alone  possessed  both  weapons  and 
implements;  but  these  were  of  an  entirely 
different  kind  and  served  a  purpose  entirely 
different  from  the  social  one. 

Hitherto  I  have  only  been  able  to  touch 
lightly  upon  the  many  things  our  age  offers 
to  youth  and  expects  of  it  in  return.  The 
greatest  of  them  remains  to  be  dealt  with. 


io          The  Younger  Generation 

What  this  is,  was  known  even  a  quarter  of 
a  century  ago  to  a  few  among  the  young. 
For  there  are  always  some  who  are  up  at  dawn, 
who  have  sharper  ears  and  clearer  eyes  than 
the  rest  for  the  signs  that  herald  daybreak. 

The  young  men  and  women  of  our  time 
are  able  to  enjoy  the  delight  of  being  young 
just  in  one  of  the  awakening  periods  of  our 
race,  one  of  its  marvellous  spring  days;  their 
privilege  is  the  intoxicating  knowledge  of  hav- 
ing their  whole  life  before  them,  full  of  the 
problems  of  new  creation. 

And  yet  there  are  many,  even  among  the 
young,  who  have  no  inkling  of  this  good  for- 
tune ;  nay,  who  see  in  the  great  ideas  of  the 
time  nothing  but  "aberrations." 

Even  in  the  richest  periods  of  our  race — at 
the  Renaissance,  for  instance — similar  elderly 
souls  have  been  found,  lamenting  over  the 
"disappearance  of  old  landmarks"  ...  or 
of  the  old-fashioned  Christmas!  But  the 
sociologist  knows  as  well  as  the  meteorologist 
that,  if  the  "old  landmarks"  no  longer  hold 
good,  this  is  not  due  to  the  "depravity  of  the 
times,"  but  to  changes  in  the  atmosphere, 
terrestrial  or  social. 

To  those  who  in  the  movements  of  the  time 
see  nothing  but  "tendencies  to  dissolution," 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    n 

I  do  not  address  myself;  but  assert  instead, 
with  the  most  immutable  conviction,  that  the 
sun  of  a  new  religious  view  of  life  is  in  process 
of  condensation  from  the  nebulae  of  present- 
day  ideas,  and  that  a  new  order  of  society  is 
organising  itself  out  of  the  chaos  of  actual 
conflicts.  When  both  these  processes  are 
complete,  it  will  be  seen  how  one  has  deter- 
mined the  other.  The  ascent  of  our  race 
towards  ever  higher  forms  of  life,  towards  an 
ever  richer  completeness,  this  is  the  goal  which 
the  new  individual  piety  and  the  new  social 
conscience  embrace  in  common  with  religious 
fervour.  When  the  striving  towards  this 
goal  becomes  the  "categorical  imperative, " 
both  for  all  individual  ethics  and  for  all  social 
politics,  then  will  the  keys  of  all  social  "ques- 
tions" of  to-day  begin  to  shine  around  us  as 
the  primroses — which  are  also  called  "keys 
of  heaven" — brighten  the  grass  at  Easter. 

This  conviction,  which  the  age  has  given 
to  me,  it  offers  to  all  who  will  receive  it. 
And  to  him  who  once  possesses  this  faith,  the 
true  line  of  action  reveals  itself  spontaneously. 

I  do  not  include  in  this  line  of  action  ad- 
herence to  the  Social-Democratic  or  any  other 
party.  In  many  cases — as  in  my  own — per- 
sonal reasons  may  forbid  one's  joining  any 


12          The  Younger  Generation 

party.  But  the  conduct  which  will  be  an 
inevitable  consequence  of  adopting  the  great 
ideas  of  the  time  will  consist  in  the  first  place 
of  showing  by  word  and  deed  one's  under- 
standing of  the  path  that  social  development 
must  follow  at  the  outset — that  of  class  warfare. 
The  path  is  not  the  goal,  and  the  more  the 
path  can  be  shortened  and  made  even,  the 
better.  But  the  class  war  of  the  fourth 
estate  can  no  more  be  avoided  than  any  other 
of  the  class  conflicts  through  which  the  social 
organism  has  acquired  new  forms;  conflicts 
which,  as  in  the  present  case  of  the  fourth 
estate,  have  been  evoked  by  unsatisfied  needs 
of  life  and  culture. 

Such  needs  are  met  in  every  age  by  the 
ruling  strata  of  society  just  as  the  liberal 
middle  class — after  it  had  won  its  own  class 
conflict — met  the  demands  of  the  working- 
class:  at  first  with  obstinate  resistance,  then 
with  promises  of  "reforms  adapted  to  the 
times, "  so  far  as  they  might  be  fitted  into  the 
framework  of  the  "existing  order  of  society." 
Even  the  Conservatives  are  aware  that  the 
profits  of  capital  are  increased  by  good  con- 
ditions of  labour;  nor  are  they  blind  to  the 
justice  of  certain  measures  of  workmen's  in- 
surance, etc.  But  every  tendency  to  "dis- 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    13 

turb  the  existing  order  of  society"  is  to  the 
Liberal,  as  to  the  Conservative,  "anarchical." 

That  the  liberal  idea  of  society,  founded  on 
the  freedom  of  labour  and  of  competition, 
is  already  disturbed  by  the  combinations  of 
capital  on  one  side  and  of  labour  on  the  other, 
is  not  perceived;  nor  again  that  the  actual 
task  of  both  powers  in  the  State  is  to  put  an 
end  by  legislation  to  the  anarchy  of  the  la- 
bour market,  to  bring  the  war  to  a  close,  and 
to  establish  a  labour  peace  on  new  bases. 

The  "third  power  in  the  State,"  the  Press, 
which  during  the  Swedish  general  strike  cried 
out  against  the  "Socialists'  attempt  to  stifle 
its  freedom ' ' 1 — is  this  power  really  free  ?  No ; 
it  too  has  become  a  company  concern,  in 
which  the  influence  of  the  financial  director 
is  predominant  in  determining  the  attitude  of 
the  paper.  For  he  knows  best  to  what  extent 
the  dividends  may  suffer  from  a  boycott 
of  advertisers  against  obnoxious  views.  Does 
even  the  liberal  Press  dare  to  defend  with 
energy  its  own  great  principle,  the  right  of  free 
utterance? 

Liberalism  thinks  it  still  has  time  for  moving 
pieces.  That  Capitalism  has  already  upset 
the  board,  it  fails  to  see. 

1  By  means  of  the  strike  of  compositors. — TR. 


14          The  Younger  Generation 

Our  immediate  future  depends  largely  on  the 
clear-sightedness  of  the  young  in  this  matter. 

A  great  period  of  awakening  makes  immense 
demands  of  the  young;  above  all  that  of 
recognising  a  great  idea  even  when  its  battle 
is  fought  less  nobly  than  they  had  hoped,  when 
it  does  not  march  on  "with  white  banners  and 
lily-decked  spears,"  but  comes  with  red  flags 
and  heads  upon  its  spear-points.1 

Will  that  section  of  the  thinking  and  feeling 
youth  of  the  present  day,  which  takes  no 
direct  part  in  class  warfare,  be  able  to  see  that, 
however  ugly  the  conflict  may  now  appear,  it 
is  nevertheless  being  fought  for  the  sake  of  a 
more  perfect  ordering  of  society,  a  greater 
social  justice? 

That  we  live  in  social  war  time,  we  all  know. 
As  international  war  is  recognised  by  the  law 
of  nations,  so  must  social  war  be  recognised. 
Sooner  or  later  both  will  be  abolished.  Mean- 
while both  will  continue ;  and  one  of  the  causes 
of  their  continuance  is  the  view  that  a  war 
"concerns"  only  the  belligerent  nations  or 
classes.  When  the  sense  of  solidarity  has 
been  developed  to  such  a  point  that  each  one 

1  The  conservative  Press  of  Gothenburg  was  not  ashamed  to 
accuse  me,  on  the  strength  of  these  words,  of — inciting  to  a 
sanguinary  revolution! 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    15 

feels  the  cause  of  all  others  as  his  own,  we  shall 
be  drawing  near  to  international  and  to  social 
peace. 

This  solidarity  has  attained  its  first  form 
in  class  solidarity.  This  is  forced  to  demand 
that  the  essential  weapon  of  the  workers — • 
the  cessation  of  labour — shall  be  as  effective 
as  possible.  To  judge,  for  instance,  of  a 
breach  of  contract,  occurring  during  a  defen- 
sive conflict,  in  the  same  way  as  one  would 
judge  of  it  in  time  of  peace,  betrays  a  method 
of  reasoning  like  that  of  those  who  call  the 
soldier  a  "murderer." 

An  action  by  which  the  individual  hazards 
great  personal  advantages  has  a  different 
ethical  standard  from  one  by  which  he  gains 
personal  advantages.  It  was  very  fortunate 
for  Gustavus  Vasa  that  at  least  there  were  no 
papers  to  set  forth  his  breach  of  faith,  when 
in  spite  of  his  oath  to  the  Church  he  outraged 
ancient  laws  and  sacred  feelings  in  order  to 
establish  the  kingdom  of  Sweden  on  the  ruins 
of  the  Church. 

The  capacity  of  the  Press  for  confusing  ideas 
of  justice  shows  itself  in  times  of  social  strife 
in  so  disastrous  a  fashion  that  one  is  tempted 
to  wish  that  the  government,  when  forbidding 
the  retailing  of  spirits,  might  also  forbid  the 


16          The  Younger  Generation 

sale  of  papers,  and  that  the  public  might  be 
forced  to  content  itself  with  telegrams  about 
the  state  of  the  conflict.  After  this  involun- 
tary abstinence  from  the  stimulant  of  leading 
articles  the  public  would  find  its  independence 
of  thought,  its  power  of  discernment,  its 
sense  of  justice  so  much  increased,  that  the 
solution  of  conflicts  after  these  "self-denial 
weeks"  would  be  considerably  facilitated! 

The  most  astounding  thing  is  to  see  workers 
who  have  replied  to  a  general  lock-out  by  a 
general  strike  treated  by  the  Press  as  aggress- 
ors against  the  "third  party,"  society,  "which 
ought  to  stand  outside  it  all."  Do  not  the 
locked -out  workers,  then,  with  their  wives 
and  children  belong  to  society?  Does  not 
the  distress  caused  by  the  lock-out  fall 
indirectly  upon  the  third  party?  And  even 
if  this  third  party  were  unaffected  by  the 
distress,  it  ought  at  least  to  perceive  that  as 
consumer  and  taxpayer  it  suffers  just  as  much 
when  Capital  forms  its  trusts  and  rings  as 
when  Trade-Unions  declare  their  strikes;  in 
other  words,  that  the  third  party  in  reality 
never  can  be  unaffected  by  the  present  state 
of  war  and  never  ought  to  be  absolved  of  its 
share  in  the  responsibility  for  it.  To  regard 
society  as  a  third  party  involves  a  mechanical 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    17 

conception  of  the  social  structure,  the  organic 
nature  of  which  was  suspected  even  by  the 
ancient  Roman,  when  he  related  on  the  Mons 
Sacer  the  fable  of  the  belly  and  its  members. 

The  conception  of  society  as  a  piece  of 
machinery  leads  to  denunciations  of  the 
wheels  and  belts  that  are  responsible  for 
the  partial  stoppage  of  the  machine.  In  the 
organic  conception,  however,  we  witness 
another  phenomenon:  the  earliest,  uncertain 
stirring  of  a  new  ethical  conscience,  the  new 
morality  of  class  solidarity.  It  shows  itself 
as  a  power  of  good  and  evil,  exactly  as  the 
morality  of  patriotism  has  shown  itself. 
Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  anything  but 
a  preparatory  school  for  the  final,  perfect 
solidarity  within  the  nation  and  between  the 
nations.  Neither  the  conservative  nor  the 
liberal  middle-class  Press  understands  this 
morality.  It  cries  out  for  forcible  measures 
to  prevent  the  subversion  of  society,  for 
police  and  military  against  the  creators  of 
disturbance.  Many  young  people  even  join 
in  this  cry.  They  eagerly  produce  evidence 
from  national  economics  and  statistics  that 
"socialism  is  on  the  wane,"  and  that  "the 
labour  question  indisputably  admits  of  solu- 
tion on  the  basis  of  existing  society." 


i8          The  Younger  Generation 

But  perhaps  there  are  to  be  found  other 
young  people,  capable  of  testing  psychologically 
the  spiritual  phenomena  of  the  labour  move- 
ment ;  young  people  whose  object  is  a  complete 
social  education,  who  seriously  devote  them- 
selves to  some  social  problem.  These  will 
sooner  or  later  be  confronted  with  this  ques- 
tion of  conscience:  whether  they  are  willing 
to  give  their  powers  for  the  preservation  of  the 
social  order  as  it  now  exists,  or  whether  they 
will  hazard  those  powers  in  the  transformation 
of  this  order,  according  to  which  the  majority, 
with  its  meagre  primary  schooling,  serves  a 
minority  with  the  advantages  of  higher  edu- 
cation; according  to  which  the  majority,  liv- 
ing on  or  below  the  verge  of  poverty,  forms 
the  foundation  for  a  minority's  unreason- 
able accumulation  of  wealth.  In  other  words, 
whether  they  wish  to  preserve  a  society  in 
which  money  has  become  the  end  in  itself 
instead  of  the  means,  in  which  the  prosperity, 
not  of  human  beings,  but  of  companies  and 
trusts,  determines  the  actions  of  those  in 
power;  a  society  in  which  the  welfare  of  a 
minority  is  declared  to  be  that  of  the  whole 
people. 

Before  the  young  man  or  woman  answers 
this  question,  he  or  she  must  glance  at  the 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    19 

remaining  gifts,  in  the  shape  of  knowledge 
and  tasks,  that  the  age  offers  to  youth,  and 
ask  whether  these  have  a  chance  of  realisation 
in  the  actual  order  of  society.  The  young 
receive,  for  instance,  instruction  about  the 
sacred  functions  of  sexual  life  and  are  exhorted 
to  keep  themselves  healthy  and  pure  for  these. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  the  chances  of  marriage 
are  reduced  and  prostitution  is  maintained, 
in  a  great  measure,  through  starvation  wages 
for  female  labour.  The  young  work  with 
zeal  in  the  cause  of  temperance.  But  they 
know  that  prohibition  will  always  be  cir- 
cumvented so  long  as  wretched  dwellings, 
bad  food,  and  a  low  state  of  culture  cause  a 
fierce  desire  for  alcoholic  stimulants.  The 
young  try  to  promote  popular  education.  But 
the  factory  claims  its  victims  at  an  early  age, 
and  the  long  hours  of  labour  exhaust  the 
mental  elasticity  of  those  who  are  grown  up. 
The  young  occupy  themselves  with  the  relief 
of  the  poor.  But  at  every  step  they  meet  with 
sufferers  whose  injuries  have  their  origin  in 
the  existing  economic  system.  With  increas- 
ing zeal  attempts  are  now  being  made  to 
provide  protection  for  mothers  and  infants. 
But  they  will  be  of  small  effect  in  a  society 
where  the  labour  of  the  mothers  is  exploited 


20          The  Younger  Generation 

in  industry.  The  young  are  working  in  the 
cause  of  peace;  but  peace  can  never  be 
attained  so  long  as  greedy  Capital,  visibly 
or  invisibly,  directs  the  fate  of  nations.  And 
even  those  measures  which  directly  affect 
the  conditions  of  labour — unemployment  in- 
surance, employers'  liability,  labour  contracts, 
arbitration — can  become  really  effectual  only 
in  proportion  as  social  policy  is  conducted 
upon  new  principles. 

When  the  young  have  considered  these  and 
other  allied  facts  seriously  and  from  every 
point  of  view,  they  will  perhaps  hesitate  before 
answering  Yes  to  the  question,  whether  they 
are  willing  to  devote  their  young  powers  to  the 
work  of  repairing  existing  society. 

If  the  young  man  finally  answers  this 
question  in  the  negative,  he  will  probably 
become  either  a  Social  Democrat  or  demo- 
cratically social,  which  means  that  he  will  not 
march  under  the  banner  of  class  war,  but  will 
co-operate  fully  and  freely  with  the  Social 
Democracy  in  the  transformation  of  society. 
At  the  same  time  he  will  be  able  to  assert,  on 
behalf  of  himself  and  others,  that  individual- 
ism to  which  class  warfare  does  not  allow  free 
play,  but  which — in  the  aesthetic  interests 
of  the  society  of  the  future — must  acquire  an 


What  the  Age  Expects  of  Youth    2 1 

even  greater  value  in  the  mind  of  each,  before 
it  can  take  its  proper  place  in  the  ordering 
of  society. 

Many  other  claims  our  age  makes  on  the 
young,  who  have  received  its  great  gift — the 
hope  of  a  new  society  and  a  higher  humanity. 
But  with  only  the  greatest  of  these  demands 
will  I  now  appeal  with  all  my  strength  to  the 
heart  of  the  young — not  to  grow  weary, 
whatever  experiences  may  come  and  however 
devious  may  be  the  path  of  development ;  never 
to  be  tempted,  because  of  the  many  obstacles 
one  finds  in  the  way,  to  say  it  is  not  worth 
while!  It  is  not  sufficient  for  the  young  to 
devote  their  enthusiasm,  their  courage,  their 
ambition,  their  self-sacrifice  to  the  great  ideas 
of  the  time ;  the  young  must  not  only  preserve 
but  increase  their  powers,  if  they  are  to  be 
really  equal  to  their  eternal  task,  that  of 
drawing  the  age  in  advance.  Why  else  has 
youth  its  great,  gleaming  wings — the  wings 
of  longing  and  of  intuition — if  not  to  raise 
itself  above  obstacles? 

The  young  must  be  prepared  to  experience 
innumerable  disappointments  and  yet  not 
fail. 

Our  victories  are  of  significance  to  the  sum 


22          The  Younger  Generation 

of  being.  To  ourselves  the  victories  are  not 
the  supremely  important  matter.  The  great 
thing,  upon  which  all  else  depends,  is  not  to 
allow  the  greatest  belief  of  one's  life  to  be 
wrecked ;  or,  in  the  words  of  the  poet : 

Canst  thou  through  joy  and  grief  preserve 
Thy  childlike  soul  unto  the  last, 
Then  gleams  the  rainbow  through  thy  tears, 
Then  shines  a  halo  o'er  thy  grave. 


II 

ASSOCIATED  ACTIVITY  AND  SELF-CULTURE 


II 

ASSOCIATED  ACTIVITY  AND   SELF-CULTURE 

CVERY  educated  person  knows  that  gen- 
*— '  uine  culture  is  only  to  be  acquired  by 
personal  work  and  associated  work. 

One  form  of  the  latter  is  the  assimilation  of 
the  works  of  contemporary  or  former  leaders 
of  culture.  Another  form  is  our  personal 
co-operation  in  the  cultural  movements  of 
our  time.  In  our  day  this  co-operation  is 
expressed  above  all  in  combination  for  public 
ends;  or,  in  other  words,  in  the  formation  of 
societies  and  associations.  This  has  become 
one  of  the  most  important  means  of  education 
for  the  younger  generation. 

But  this  method  makes  such  demands  upon 
time  and  powers  that  an  ever-diminishing 
proportion  of  either  is  left  over  for  personal 
work,  which  alone  provides  a  thorough  and 
serious  cultivation  of  the  mind.  The  true 
relation  between  the  two  educational  factors 
has  been  disturbed.  While  certain  epochs 

25 


26          The  Younger  Generation 

have  given  too  great  a  place  to  personal  cul- 
ture at  the  expense  of  social  activity,  the  re- 
verse is  now  the  case.  The  danger  to  culture 
that  has  thereby  arisen  appears  to  me  already 
so  great  that  it  ought  to  be  noticed  and,  if 
possible,  averted. 

The  most  obvious  experience  of  our  time  is 
that  a  great  variety  of  objects  are  advanced 
by  means  of  combination.  Above  all,  the 
power  of  combination  has  been  shown  in 
socialism,  which  fights  and  conquers  under 
its  banner. 

And  I  will  at  once  emphatically  declare 
that  I  am  fully  alive  to  the  necessity  of  this, 
the  mightiest  associated  movement  of  all 
times.  Only  by  this  means  can  socialism 
attain  its  most  proximate  and  least  contested 
goal :  human  conditions  of  life  for  all  members 
of  society  willing  to  work  or  incapacitated 
for  work.  It  is  thus  not  combination  in  itself 
that  can  be  blamed  by  those  who — like  myself 
— desire  the  victory  of  socialistic  principles. 
The  ill-informed  think  that  the  goal  of  social- 
ism is  only  new  economic  conditions;  that 
the  whole  conflict  is  concerned  with  the 
method  and  division  of  production.  These 
ill-informed  ones  do  not  know — or  will  not 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          27 

know — that  the  struggle  has  finally  to  do  with 
a  greater  and  remoter  object :  a  new  and  more 
beautiful  life  upon  earth  through  the  highest 
possible  enhancement  of  the  existence  of  each 
human  individual — and  thereby  of  that  of  the 
whole  race — and  thus  also  an  enhancement  of 
the  value  of  life  to  each  individual  and  to  the 
whole  of  humanity. 

The  dream  of  this  enhancement  of  life  is 
the  innermost  motive  power  of  the  socialist 
movement,  a  power  of  a  religious  nature. 
The  current  of  emotion,  which  was  formerly 
directed  to  gaining  eternal  bliss,  is  turned  in 
socialism — in  the  same  degree  as  the  latter 
is  permeated  by  evolutionism — towards  the 
perfecting  of  earthly  life. 

When  Conservatives  and  Liberals  alike 
point  to  this  or  that  socialistic  theory  as 
refuted — nay,  abandoned  by  socialism  itself — 
and  in  consequence  declare  socialism  to  be 
dead,  then  there  always  appears  to  my  inner 
eye  a  picture  drawn  by  the  pen  of  a  great 
poet.  The  subject  is  the  nocturnal  visit  of 
Nicodemus  to  Jesus.  The  colloquy  has  come 
to  an  end,  after  Nicodemus  has  expressed  his 
doubts  and  Jesus  has  failed  to  dispel  them. 
All  is  still  in  the  little  chamber;  only  the 
flame  of  the  hanging  lamp  flickers  in  the  spring 


28          The  Younger  Generation 

wind.  Suddenly  Jesus  breaks  the  silence 
with  the  words:  "Nicodemus,  dost  thou  not 
perceive  the  creative  spirit,  renewing  its  world 
in  a  mighty  rushing  wind?  " 

In  these  two  figures  the  poet  has  set  forth 
the  immemorial  contrast  between  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  religious  natures ;  the  one  who 
is  only  convinced  by  proofs  and  facts,  and  the 
one  whose  certainty  rests  upon  faith,  upon 
feeling,  and  upon  intuition.  The  latter  has 
the  capacity  for  "feeling  in  the  air" — without 
seeing  with  the  eyes — that  a  new  springtime 
has  arrived. 

To  natures  of  this  kind  it  is  certain  that 
even  if — to  take  an  example — the  majority 
of  Marx's  precepts  lay  as  dead  as  mummies 
within  the  pyramid  of  his  doctrine,  yet  the 
most  essential  part  of  his  message  would  be 
just  as  ready  to  germinate  as  the  grains  of 
wheat  that  were  found  after  thousands  of 
years  within  the  actual  pyramids.  This  essen- 
tial part  is  precisely  the  idea  of  combination, 
the  international  combination  of  labour,  from 
which  has  arisen  an  entirely  new  sense  of 
solidarity,  of  mutual  help  and  mutual  respon- 
sibility; and  with  it  also  new  ethical  and 
intellectual  forces  within  the  working-class. 
Through  their  passionate  devotion  to  and 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          29 

boundless  self-sacrifice  for  the  idea  of  combina- 
tion, the  workers  have  won  a  magnificent 
advance  in  culture,  the  value  of  which  is  not 
diminished  by  the  acts  of  aggression,  regret- 
table in  themselves,  that  the  principle  of 
solidarity  occasions  here  and  there. 

It  implies,  therefore,  no  depreciation  of  the 
value  of  combination  as  an  instrument  of  war, 
if  I  here  insist  that  it  is  a  one-sided  instrument 
of  education;  nay  more,  that  it  involves  a 
serious  danger  to  the  final  goal  of  social  strife 
— the  future,  more  perfect  existence  of  the  race. 

If  in  what  follows  I  attack  the  socialist 
associations  before  all  others,  this  is  in  the  first 
place  because  their  aim  is  also  mine ;  but  also 
because  one  can  best  observe  a  movement  of 
the  time — its  dangers  as  well  as  its  advantages 
— by  scrutinising  it  in  its  strongest,  most 
pronounced  form. 

What  is  here  said  about  the  associations  of 
socialism  may,  however,  be  applied  to  all  other 
forms  of  association.  For  just  as  it  is  the 
same  element  that  is  stirred  by  the  wind  in 
the  great  ocean  and  in  the  little  pond,  so  it 
is  the  same  human  nature  that  is  influenced 
by  the  spirit  of  combination  in  the  interna- 
tional labour  organisation  and  in  the  little 
schoolboys'  club. 


30          The  Younger  Generation 

When  we  look  at  the  organisation  of  labour, 
we  find  in  the  first  place  that  its  associated 
life  constitutes  an  education  in  discipline — 
a  necessary  education.  For  the  individual 
must  be  capable  of  subordination  and  self- 
command  when  he  belongs  to  a  fighting  army. 
And  this  is  easy  when  the  object  of  the  fight 
is  to  secure  that  henceforth  everyone  shall 
be  able  to  attain  the  greatest  possible  develop- 
ment and  the  best  possible  application  of  his 
personal  powers,  the  greatest  possible  freedom 
of  movement  and  richness  of  life,  or,  in  a  word, 
happiness. 

The  means  of  conflict  separates  socialism 
from  liberalism,  which  calls  this  means  thral- 
dom. The  goal  of  conflict  separates  it  from 
conservatism,  which  calls  this  goal  a  selfish 
desire  of  happiness,  springing  from  material- 
ism's "frog-like  view  of  existence." 

The  occasional  expressions  of  sympathy 
with  socialism  that  one  hears  from  Conserva- 
tives apply,  in  fact,  to  its  weak  side:  its 
strict  discipline,  its  rigid  cohesion,  its  suppres- 
sion of  the  personal.  For  all  this,  which 
Socialists  themselves  often  regard  as  a  neces- 
sary evil,  is  precisely  the  social  ideal  of  con- 
servatism: the  complete  subjection  of  the 
individual  to  the  idea  of  the  State.  The 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          31 

approval  of  conservatism  ought  therefore  to 
be  a  serious  warning  to  labour  organisations, 
lest  they  develop  obedience  and  self-control 
too  one-sidedly  at  the  expense  of  initiative 
and  self-reliance.  For  the  aim  is  to  liberate, 
not  to  bind  and  break  the  individual  powers. 
But  unless  the  practice  of  association  has  found 
out  how  to  preserve  these  powers,  no  co- 
operation can  take  place  in  the  society  of  the 
future  between  free,  creative,  valuable  human 
beings — since  the  conflict  will  have  produced 
only  slavish  souls,  incapable  of  using  their 
powers  in  freedom. 

We  are  here  face  to  face  with  the  fundamen- 
tal question  of  the  influence  of  co-operation 
on  the  personality,  of  the  habit  of  associa- 
tion on  self-culture.  And  however  difficult 
may  be  the  problems  of  national  economy 
that  the  present  time  has  to  solve,  they  are 
child's  play  in  comparison  with  this  question 
of  spiritual  economy.  We  shall  long  ago 
have  done  with  the  reign  of  monopoly  and 
speculation,  with  unearned  increment  and  the 
idle  amassing  of  wealth,  while  the  laws  of 
the  soul's  movements  and  equilibrium,  while 
the  conditions  of  spiritual  production  and 
consumption  will  still  remain  problems  for  the 
solution  of  which  we  shall  grope  in  the  dark. 


32          The  Younger  Generation 

Altered  social  conditions  may  remove  cer- 
tain ailments  and  deformities  in  existing 
society.  But  the  new  and  more  beautiful 
society  will  not  be  formed  exclusively — or 
even  mainly — by  improved  conditions,  but 
above  all  by  more  perfect  human  beings. 

Now  someone  may  object  that  I  have  just 
acknowledged  association  to  be  valuable  as  a 
means  of  education,  and  to  have  had  great 
ethical  and  intellectual  results. 

Certainly.  If  we  look  at  organised  working- 
men,  especially  the  younger  ones,  we  find  in 
them  an  encouraging  development,  particu- 
larly as  regards  their  conduct  in  public. 

Self-control,  accuracy,  parliamentary  tact, 
ability  to  give  and  accept  reasons,  to  define 
and  defend  their  point  of  view,  and  to  listen 
calmly  to  that  of  their  opponent,  all  this  is 
evidence  of  a  culture,  the  rapid  growth  of 
which  is  precisely  a  result  of  various  forms  of 
association  for  different  purposes,  and  above 
all  of  socialistic  association. 

But  side  by  side  with  these  good  effects, 
recognised  by  all,  I  must  point  out  some  that 
are  less  desirable. 

First  and  foremost,  that  the  system  of 
association  easily  leads  to  the  besetting  sin  of 
formality,  the  passion  for  red  tape. 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          33 

How  much  time  and  energy  are  wasted  in 
endless  discussions  about  rules,  questions  of 
form,  and  paltry  trifles!  How  often  does  this 
unproductive  and  administrative  work  form 
the  main  part  of  the  society's  activity !  Those 
who  would  like  to  act,  who  possess  initiative, 
who  are  hoping  to  come  to  the  point,  are 
fettered  by  the  others'  hair-splitting  pedantry. 
And  in  all  this  fussing  about  trifles  strength  is 
frittered  away;  strength  to  see,  to  feel  for, 
and  to  act  for  reality — the  three  conditions 
without  which  nothing  of  consequence  can 
be  accomplished.  The  serious  questions  that 
are  talked  out  or  strangled  with  red  tape  are 
more  numerous  than  those  that  are  killed  by 
silence;  the  number  of  people  whose  ideas 
are  knocked  on  the  head  in  societies  is  greater 
in  our  day  than  that  of  the  solitary  fighters 
who  go  under.  It  is  of  the  highest  importance 
that  the  young  should  be  quite  clear  on  this 
point,  so  that  in  all  that  concerns  statutes  and 
rules  of  procedure  they  may  aim  at  the  smallest 
possible  compass  and  the  greatest  possible  breadth 
— which  is  only  an  apparent  contradiction. 

The  temperance  societies  and  Social-Demo- 
cratic clubs  for  young  people — with  their 
circles  for  study,  their  courses  of  lectures, 
their  Sunday  and  evening  classes,  their  news- 


34          The  Younger  Generation 

papers  and  pamphlets — are  of  great  cultural 
significance.  From  the  young  members  of 
such  associations  a  renaissance  of  the  social- 
istic labour  movement  may  certainly  be 
expected.  But  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  will  let 
the  storms  of  rebirth  sweep  away  formality 
and  sham  importance,  and  substitute  the  joys 
of  personal  activity  for  the  fussy  routine  of 
committees.  And  may  no  personal  vanity 
prevent  the  saving  of  time  and  energy  that 
comes  of  the  promotion  of  several  objects  by 
one  society.  How  often  could  matters,  which 
now  demand  the  calling  together  of  four  or 
five  different  committees,  be  despatched  by  a 
single  one ! 

We,  who  fortunately  have  not  to  fight  for 
our  legal  right  of  association,  ought  instead 
seriously  to  examine  the  social  and  individual 
right  of  forming  and  joining  societies.  Every- 
one knows  that  if  he  continues  to  cut  chips 
off  a  piece  of  wood,  it  will  finally  be  of  no  use 
for  a  joist.  But  it  is  just  in  this  way  that  we 
treat  our  own  spiritual  forces.  The  air  is 
full  of  the  splinters  of  this  shattered  spiritual 
energy.  But  the  complete  souls,  those  who 
devote  their  whole  power  to  a  single  life- 
work,  these  are  becoming  more  and  more  rare. 

The  typical  disease  of  the  time  is  platform 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          35 

mania.  Those  attacked  by  this  infirmity 
cannot  sleep  at  night  unless  during  the  evening 
they  have  heard  their  own  voices  in  some 
public  assembly.  They  hurry  from  meeting 
to  meeting  and  every  day  propose  the  forma- 
tion of  new  societies  for  all  imaginable  and 
unimaginable  purposes. x 

Those  who  already  have  the  disease  are 
probably  incurable.  All  the  more  important 
is  it,  then,  to  fortify  ourselves  against  it  in 
time.  This  may  be  done  by  laughing  when- 
ever anyone  assures  us  of  our  indispensability 
to  this  cause  or  that,  when  we  know  very  well 
that,  if  we  died,  our  place  in  the  association 
would  be  filled  in  a  few  days.  It  is  only  the 
creative  one,  the  man  unique  in  his  life's 
work,  whose  loss  may  in  certain  cases  be 
called  irreparable.  Societies  are  never  likely 
to  run  short  of  members.  And,  knowing  this, 
we  have  a  full  right  to  decline  with  a  smile 
all  pressing  invitations  to  squander  ourselves 
on  committee  meetings. 

1  Since  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  civilised  man  blows  his 
nose  unhygienically,  I  am  daily  expecting  the  formation  of  a 
Society  for  Rational  Nasal  Purgation ;  a  society  which  should  not 
be  satisfied  with  less  than  nine  members  of  committee  and 
nineteen  statutes,  the  first  of  which,  on  the  approved  model, 
should  run:  "To  blow  one's  nose  freely  is  a  great  thing;  to  blow 
it  properly  is  greater. " 


36          The  Younger  Generation 

And  above  all  the  young  have  this  right. 

The  young  man  or  woman  who  early  con- 
tracts this  disease  of  the  platform  easily 
loses  the  capacity  for  a  useful  activity  in 
private.  Habituation  to  publicity,  to  the 
approval  of  Press  and  public,  often  gives  the 
brittle  glass  of  the  young  soul  one  of  those 
cracks  that  are  not  noticed  until  the  wine  has 
slowly  trickled  out  and  the  glass  is  left  empty. 

The  most  obvious  danger  involved  in  the 
system  of  association  is  that  its  machinery 
works  blindly,  without  any  safeguards  to 
prevent  those  who  work  in  it  from  being 
maimed  in  essential  parts  of  their  personality. 
And  as  the  conscience  of  the  individual  is 
lulled  to  sleep  under  the  hypnotism  exercised 
by  a  party,  a  society,  or  a  committee,  the 
danger  becomes  still  greater,  since  it  is  un- 
noticed. The  man  who  stands  outside  a 
parliament,  a  party,  an  association,  or  a 
committee,  often  asks  himself  how  the  mem- 
bers of  this  body  can  be  so  stone-blind  to  the 
truth,  when  he  knows  that  several  of  them 
as  individuals  are  possessed  of  intelligence. 
How  can  they  be  so  unjust,  when  several  of 
them  as  individuals  show  a  sense  of  justice? 
How  can  they  be  guilty  of  such  gross  errors, 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          37 

when  each  is  nevertheless  actuated  by  good 
intentions? 

And  the  answer  is  always  the  same :  Around 
every  group  working  in  common  there  forms 
an  ever  denser  fog  of  involuntary  ideas,  such 
as  "regard  for  the  facts  of  the  case,"  for  the 
"possibility  of  accomplishing  anything,"  for 
"what  is  expedient  at  the  moment."  For 
the  sake  of  these  misty  visions  the  individual 
is  ever  more  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own 
opinions,  to  surrender  his  own  will,  to  corrupt 
his  own  conscience.  And  all  this  without  a 
shadow  of  self-reproach!  The  atmosphere 
created  by  association  makes  those  who  live 
in  it  "devoid  of  responsibility  and  remorse," 
to  borrow  one  of  Kierkegaard's  profound 
sayings  of  the  dangers  of  shared  activity. 

Through  never  acting  in  public  life  as 
individuals  but  only  as  "members,"  the  con- 
sciences of  many  people  become  like  the 
clappers  of  church  bells  in  the  Middle  Ages 
during  Lent — which  had  straw  wound  round 
them  to  make  them  silent.  The  common  weal 
is  the  straw  that  is  wound  round  the  clapper 
of  the  individual  conscience;  and  so  it  re- 
mains dumb.  In  the  end  there  is  no  injustice, 
no  falsehood,  no  act  of  vengeance  or  oppres- 
sion that  cannot  be  assented  to  with  an  easy 


38          The  Younger  Generation 

conscience  in  common  with  the  rest  of 
the  group — all  in  the  name  of  "discipline," 
"the  spirit  of  fellowship,"  and  "the  public 
advantage." 

A  Jewish  sage  declared  that  from  every 
action  a  good  or  bad  angel  was  born,  but  that 
confused  or  half-accomplished  acts,  deeds 
without  meaning  and  without  strength,  gave 
birth  to  angels  with  deformed  limbs,  or  lack- 
ing head  or  hands  or  feet.  And  to  a  healthy 
eye  most  political  resolutions  appear  just  in 
this  way,  as  the  deformed  offspring  of  minds 
bewildered  by  politics.  This  malformation 
is  the  heaviest  price  that  the  race  has  to  pay 
in  every  war  of  culture — in  our  time  in  the 
socialistic  conflict  particularly.  It  is  of  the 
very  greatest  importance  that  this  price 
should  be  reduced;  that  young  Socialists 
should  devote  their  will  to  the  elevation  of 
party  morality  and  to  a  change  of  tactics  in 
those  cases  where  they  now  resemble  those 
of  the  mediaeval  Church,  with  compulsory 
baptism  and  judgment  of  heretics,  with  tor- 
ture and  autos-da-fe.  Unless  this  takes  place, 
the  nobler  natures  will  more  and  more  hold 
aloof  from  a  movement  in  which  acts  of 
violence  and  injustice  are  committed  in  the 
name  of  ultimate  justice.  And  although,  no 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  39 

doubt,  this  may  be  explained  by  the  grounds  of 
the  conflict,  it  must  nevertheless  incontestably 
be  deplored.  Especially  as  it  has  deterred 
many,  among  the  youth  of  the  universities  in 
particular,  from  definitely  joining  a  movement 
to  which  they  belong  in  sympathy. 

This  loss  to  the  movement  can  only  in 
part  be  made  good  by  the  educational  work 
of  the  young  Social  Democrats  themselves, 
however  rich  in  promise  this  may  be. 

But  after  all  the  greatest  danger  is  that  in- 
justice in  a  conflict  acts  like  rust  on  a  weapon 
or  tool;  if  the  rust  is  allowed  to  wear  away 
the  steel  unhindered,  it  will  finally  render  the 
weapon  useless  for  its  purpose. 

The  culture  afforded  by  association  in  its 
present  form  acts,  in  short,  like  an  education 
founded  upon  complete  authority  on  the 
parents'  side  and  complete  obedience  on  that 
of  the  child:  it  breaks  down  the  strength  of 
individuality,  it  levels  and  makes  uniform, 
it  checks  enterprise,  strength  of  will,  and 
resolution.  What  has  been  begun  by  home 
and  school  education  is  continued  by  the  life 
of  association;  the  different  human  elements 
are  kneaded  together  into  a  homogeneous 
mass. 


40          The  Younger  Generation 

Instead  of  the  social  aristocracy,  which  is 
the  future  ideal  of  the  most  highly  developed, 
we  are  in  this  way  moving  towards  mass  rule 
as  the  future  form  of  government.  That  is, 
if  socialism  remains  true  to  the  democratic 
ideal  and  does  not  end  by  adopting  that  of 
conservatism:  the  omnipotence  of  the  State 
over  an  obedient  herd  subservient  to  the 
social  idea.  But  neither  by  the  path  of  mass 
rule  nor  by  that  of  State  rule  can  the  race 
arrive  at  the  ideal  goal  of  socialism  mentioned 
above. 

This  we  shall  only  approach  in  the  degree 
in  which  the  "mass"  is  more  and  more  trans- 
formed into  individuals,  who  will  be  willing, 
in  and  through  the  full  development  of  their 
own  best  powers,  to  appreciate  those  of  all 
the  rest ;  who  will  thus  be  in  a  position  to  make 
sure  choice  of  a  leader  and  follow  him  volun- 
tarily wherever  there  is  need  of  a  leader,  but 
who  will  at  the  same  time  know  how  to  pre- 
serve their  own  independence,  their  own 
characteristics,  their  own  creativity  within 
the  sphere  that  belongs  to  them.  The  level- 
ling pressure  exercised  by  private  and  party 
education  has  its  ultimate  origin  in  the  ever- 
lasting error  that  the  present  moment  must 
be  sacrificed  to  the  future — whereas  the  value 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  41 

of  the  future  depends  precisely  upon  the  value 
of  the  whole  succession  of  "present  moments" 
that  one  thoughtlessly  sacrifices  to  the  future. 

For  is  not  the  present  moment  a  part  of  that 
future?  Does  not  the  bread  of  the  future  take 
many  days  and  nights  to  grow?  Can  we  neg- 
lect the  conditions  of  growth  at  the  moment 
and  still  expect  a  harvest  in  the  future? 

Can  one  hour  by  hour  allow  one's  nature  to 
be  repressed  and  find  it  fairly  grown  in  the 
future?  Day  by  day  silence  one's  conscience 
and  find  it  eloquent  in  the  future?  Year  by 
year  starve  one's  soul  and  find  it  fully  de- 
veloped in  the  future?  The  young  man  who 
becomes  absorbed  in  social,  above  all  in 
political  work,  lives  on  the  false  doctrine  that 
the  individual  must  sacrifice  himself  for  the 
community;  that  a  man  gains  himself  by 
forgetting  himself;  that  he  is  preparing  the 
happiness  of  others  in  the  future  by  renounc- 
ing his  own  in  the  present.  And  the  spiritu- 
ally shallow  rejoice  in  these  young  men,  just 
as  other  shallow  people  rejoice  in  the  sprigs  of 
birch  that  are  brought  to  market  as  soon  as 
the  fire  of  the  hearth  has  coaxed  out  their 
tender  leaves.  To  the  thoughtful  it  is  pitiful 
to  see  these  branches,  that  will  never  wave 
in  the  winds  of  May  or  be  wanned  by  the 


42  The  Younger  Generation 

summer  sun.  And  still  more  pitiful  is  the 
case  of  the  young  who  anticipate  the  course 
of  nature  in  their  spiritual  budding  and 
flowering. 

Young  people  who  throw  themselves  pre- 
maturely into  the  life  of  "social  activity" 
and  of  associations  forfeit  the  most  important 
period  for  their  own  self-culture.  These 
young  people  begin  giving  answers  before  they 
themselves  have  asked  serious  questions,  and 
learn  to  question  before  they  have  listened 
in  silence.  They  lose  the  repose  needed  for 
self -absorption,  which  perhaps  can  never  af- 
terwards be  regained.  Their  views  become 
vague,  their  judgments  precipitate,  if  they 
are  in  a  hurry  to  announce  them  in  discus- 
sions and  addresses,  instead  of  allowing  them 
to  mature  slowly  while  exchanging  ideas 
with  a  friend  or  an  intimate  circle. 

More  solitude,  less  association,  that  is  what 
young  people  require  in  their  "teens, "  if  they 
are  not  to  find  themselves  ten  years  later  with 
a  sense  of  great  inward  emptiness — nay  more, 
if  they  are  not  to  look  with  disgust  upon  the 
social  problems  which  they  ought  then  to  be 
ready  and  eager  to  attack.  It  is  far  too  easily 
forgotten  that  the  harvest  is  rich  only  when 
every  ear  of  corn  is  so;  that  the  community 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  43 

acquires  its  collective  value  not  merely  through 
what  its  individual  members  accomplish,  but 
through  what  they  are.  If  the  units  wear 
themselves  out  or  are  exhausted  for  the  sake 
of  the  whole,  the  result  must  be  that  the  whole 
will  sooner  or  later  bear  less  fruit;  this  is  so 
obvious  an  experience  that  it  is  astonishing 
to  find  it  necessary  to  preach  it  again  and 
again  as  a  forgotten  truth. 

The  zeal  of  the  younger  generation  of  the 
working-class  for  temperance  and  education 
is  one  of  the  most  promising  signs  of  our  time. 
But  the  will  is  not  enough ;  it  is  not  sufficient 
that  the  external  conditions  of  education 
should  be  available  in  increasing  abundance; 
the  inward  qualifications  are  the  all-important 
matter.  Every  agriculturist  knows  that 
sowing  in  stormy  weather  is  an  unprofitable 
proceeding.  But  it  is  equally  fruitless  to 
impart  knowledge  to  a  mind  blown  hither  and 
thither  by  the  demands  of  public  life. 

Our  education — in  other  words,  our  growth 
and  maturing — is  a  slow  process  in  each  of  its 
three  departments — ethical,  aesthetic,  and  in- 
tellectual. There  is  now  amongst  the  young 
a  great  deal  of  so-called  "seriousness"  in  the 
handling  of  great  questions,  which  is  in  fact 
nothing  but  frivolity.  For  true  seriousness 


44          The  Younger  Generation 

abstains  from  opinions  and  judgments  upon 
subjects  it  has  only  dipped  into  and  per- 
sons with  whom  it  is  imperfectly  acquainted. 
True  seriousness  rebels  against  the  demand 
for  a  ready-made,  cut-and-dried  view.  True 
seriousness  inquires  into  its  right  to  feel  resent- 
ment or  enthusiasm  in  any  given  case.  Only 
when  such  progress  has  been  made  in  self- 
culture  that  the  thoughts  have  begun  to 
assume  a  certain  degree  of  clearness  and  the 
feelings  to  concentrate  themselves  into  a 
motive  force,  will  it  be  time  to  take  part  in 
public  life,  which  is  now  so  confused  and 
debased  owing  to  this  very  want  of  self- 
culture  in  those  who  take  part  in  it,  whether 
they  be  among  the  seniors  or  the  juniors. 

Another  danger  involved  in  the  present-day 
habit  of  association — and  one  that  is  irrespec- 
tive of  class,  age,  or  sex — is  that  it  reduces  the 
inclination  for  professional  work  and  home 
work.  How  much  pleasanter,  easier,  more 
appreciated  is  our  work  for  the  "society" 
than  our  irksome  daily  round!  The  taste 
for  work  grows  less  as  the  meetings  increase 
in  number,  and  with  the  taste,  the  capacity 
for  work  declines.  But  if  this  goes  on,  how 
will  it  be  possible  one  day,  in  the  society  of 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  45 

the  future,  to  meet  the  constantly  growing 
needs  of  all  more  completely  than  at  present? 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  our  vaunted  mate- 
rial civilisation  now  produces  innumerable 
superfluities  to  meet  artificial  needs.  A  higher 
culture  will  have  to  get  rid  of  this  kind  of 
production  and  attach  importance  to  things 
entirely  different  from  those  now  demanded 
by  "civilised  life,"  even  if  we  do  not  go  so 
far  in  our  repudiation  as  the  celebrated 
sociologist,  Professor  Sombart,  who  would 
shatter  the  whole  of  "modern  civilisation"  to 
fragments.  He  asks,  for  example,  what  all 
Berlin's  electric  light  is  worth,  if  it  does  not 
shine  upon  any  rambles  so  important  from  a 
cultural  point  of  view  as  Goethe's  walks  at 
Weimar  to  and  from  Herder's  house,  walks 
that  were  undertaken  by  the  light  of  a  little 
lantern!  Or  what  there  is  to  boast  of  in  our 
express  trains,  if  they  do  not  convey  anything 
comparable  in  cultural  value  with  the  letters 
exchanged  by  Goethe  and  Schiller,  letters  that 
an  old  postwoman  carried  between  Weimar 
and  Jena. 

But  even  if  we  may  hope  for  a  new  age 
in  which  material  civilisation  will  form  the 
foundation  of  a  high  spiritual  culture,  in 
which  industry  will  supply  its  products  for 


46          The  Younger  Generation 

needs  at  once  simpler  and  more  refined — 
work  will  still  be  wanted.  And  work  that 
shows  a  constant  advance  in  craftsmanship, 
if  all  are  to  enjoy  the  improved  conditions  of 
life  for  which  we  hope.  For  the  sake  of  this 
work,  a  warning  must  be  uttered  against  the 
growing  tendency  to  devote  one's  self  to 
"social  work"  at  the  expense  of  individual 
work.  Here  again  we  have  to  find  a  middle 
course  between  the  excessive  indifference  of 
former  days  and  the  present  excessive  eager- 
ness to  take  part  in  public  affairs. 

The  least  remarked,  though  not  on  that 
account  the  smallest  danger  involved  by  the 
system  of  association  is  that  the  external 
results  attained  by  combined  action  are  so 
vast  as  to  deprive  us  of  a  standard  for  measur- 
ing the  importance  of  the  great  single  person- 
ality, the  personality  which  operates  through 
its  solitary  creative  force,  according  to  its 
own  laws  and  therefore  with  a  legitimate 
claim  to  special  conditions  of  life. 

No  doubt  there  are  personal  advantages 
which  give  one  power  over  the  moment,  such 
as  clearness,  breadth  of  vision,  promptness, 
presence  of  mind,  or  eloquence.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  public  life  is  unfavourable  to  cer- 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  47 

tain  finer  mental  gifts,  certain  more  solid 
qualities.  And,  above  all,  it  is  unfavourable  to 
the  highest  value  of  culture,  genius.  Genius 
as  a  rule  lacks  the  qualities  that  are  applicable 
and  appreciated  in  associations. 

Of  course  societies  listen  to  many  addresses 
about  men  of  genius — when  they  are  dead. 
But  in  their  lifetime  they  were  still  unintel- 
ligible to  the  collective  mind,  and  the  con- 
vincing power  of  genius  has  always  been  an 
effect  of  distance. 

A  poet  has  described  the  nature  of  genius 
by  saying  of  one  who  possessed  it:  "He 
looked  upon  the  others,  upon  those  who  dwell 
in  houses,  with  the  same  impenetrable,  un- 
familiar eyes  that  the  salamander  has,  the 
salamander  that  lives  in  fire." 

And  fire  will  always  remain  the  habitat  of 
genius. 

A  barrack — in  any  sense — is  not  the  place 
for  a  genius.  But  the  more  the  resolutions 
and  administrative  rules  of  societies  gain  the 
upper  hand,  the  less  freedom  of  movement  is 
allowed  to  the  creative  will  of  genius.  And 
thus  we  now  have,  it  is  true,  democratic  forms 
of  the  life  of  culture,  but — fewer  and  fewer 
significant  creations  of  culture.  The  commit- 
tee boldly  amends  the  ideas  of  the  architect, 


48          The  Younger  Generation 

the  sculptor,  and  the  painter;  the  committee 
— but  I  say  no  more.  For  if  I  should  begin 
to  speak  of  the  bungling  of  committees,  there 
would  be  no  end  to  the  story.  It  amounts 
to  this :  that  nothing  but  a  cultural  democracy 
is  any  good. 

"Practical  politics"  with  increasing  ruth- 
lessness  allow  the  little  laws  to  neutralise  the 
great  law:  that  all  social  policy  ought  to  aim 
at  placing  the  executive  power  in  the  best 
hands  in  every  department.  The  little  laws — 
egoism,  vanity,  envy,  revenge — now  render 
the  influence  of  the  few  important  ones 
inconsiderable  and  that  of  the  many  unim- 
portant ones  significant. 

Has  any  experience  been  more  frequently 
confirmed  than  that  which  the  leader  of  the 
Roycroft  colony,  Elbert  Hubbard,  has  thus 
put  into  words:  That  every  great  step  in 
advance  is  the  result  of  the  supremacy  of  one 
man?  And  is  any  truth  more  frequently 
overlooked  in  our  time?  For,  just  because  the 
effect  of  the  mass  is  so  powerful,  one  is  easily 
misled  into  attributing  to  it  an  importance 
it  has  never  possessed  and  can  never  possess. 

Thus  many  people  think  that  the  leader, 
who  on  some  occasion  or  other  enunciates  a 
great  solution,  is  only  inspired  to  do  so  because 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          49 

he  is  surrounded  by  minds  already  full  of  the 
question.  But  how  much  oftener  is  it  the 
leader  who  has  impelled  all  these  others  to 
ask  that  question?  Many  people  think  that 
the  current  of  spiritual  force,  which  sets  the 
mass  in  motion,  has  also  originated  within 
the  mass  itself.  But  they  forget  that  the 
spiritual  force,  which  at  a  given  historical 
moment  sets  the  mass  in  motion,  has  accumu- 
lated from  generation  to  generation  through 
solitary  souls  having  hungered  for  justice, 
suffered  for  truth,  practised  brotherly  love, 
seen  splendid  visions  of  the  future  and  served 
it  with  purity  of  will.  Thus  drop  by  drop 
has  the  stream  of  feeling  been  formed,  of 
which  socialism  now  avails  itself  for  its  motive 
power.  And  the  stream  requires  constant 
replenishing  from  the  heights  if  it  is  to  main- 
tain its  force:  replenishing  from  the  solitary 
souls  who  have  in  all  times  been  the  sources 
of  great  strength. 

The  ceaseless  co-operation  of  the  present 
day  in  all  departments — even  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  nature  people  now  want  a  "society  " — 
has  for  its  result  that  all  degrees  of  talent, 
even  that  of  genius,  all  ages,  even  the  more 
advanced,  and  all  religious  beliefs,  even  the 


50          The  Younger  Generation 

Christian,  lack  repose  and  inclination  for 
serious  self-examination,  without  which  no 
sanctity  is  thinkable. 

Who  will  nowadays  acknowledge  this  beauti- 
ful old  word?  The  present  age  laughs  at 
sanctity  as  at  an  old-fashioned  garment. 

To  every  genuine  Christian,  however,  this 
conception  still  implies  that  thoughts,  words, 
and  actions  are  to  be  tested  by  an  example 
given  once  for  all — Jesus. 

To  the  non- Christian  religious  person  the 
word  has  a  different  meaning.  For  he  con- 
siders that  only  those,  the  properties  of  whose 
souls  resemble  those  of  Jesus  himself,  can 
and  ought  to  develop  those  properties  with 
Jesus  as  an  ideal. 

The  sad  thing,  then,  is  not  that  the  word 
"sanctity"  has  acquired  a  new  meaning  in  the 
minds  of  the  little  group  of  persons  who  still 
attribute  significance  to  it.  No,  what  is  sad 
is  that  to  the  great  majority  the  word  has  lost 
its  meaning. 

For  how  can  we  hope  to  attain  higher  social 
conditions,  unless  each  individual  soul  strives 
to  reach  its  own  highest  possibilities;  unless 
each  one  tries,  first  to  form,  and  then  step 
by  step  to  approach,  his  own  ideal  of  the 
supreme  type  of  humanity? 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          51 

This  is  sanctification  in  the  new  sense  of  the 
word.  And  in  order  to  render  it  possible  we 
must  cease  to  spread  ourselves  over  ever 
wider  ranges  of  activity.  We  shall  be  com- 
pelled, in  the  sphere  of  mental  culture  also, 
to  renounce  the  extensive  in  favour  of  the 
intensive  system  of  cultivation. 

I  address  this  advice  in  particular  to  the 
very  young;  for  after  the  age  of  twenty- 
five,  examples  may  assuredly  be  found  of 
steady  spiritual  growth.  But  a  deviation 
common  to  the  whole  time  can  only  be  cor- 
rected in  the  very  young,  in  those  who 
take  their  direction — or  misdirection — before 
that  age,  those  who  by  their  "tendency" 
will  decide  the  character  of  the  succeeding 
period. 

Sanctification  is  only  another  name  for 
intensification.  And  this  implies  resolutely 
turning  aside  from  the  thousand  worldly 
things  that  split  up  the  soul  and  make  it 
superficial;  the  unproductive  passions  that 
burn  it  up,  leaving  it  dry  or  empty;  the 
pleasures  or  pains  that  make  it  narrow  or 
weak.  Only  in  this  way  can  we  extract  from 
ourselves  the  highest  value  of  which  we  are 
capable  in  our  own  degree  and  our  own  kind. 
And  to  make  of  one's  self  an  ever  greater 


52          The  Younger  Generation 

life-value — this  alone  is,  in  the  essential  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  to  live. 

But  this  is  indeed  the  desire  of  all  soulful 
youth — really  to  live;  a  noble  desire  and 
strong  enough  to  conquer  the  world — if  it 
were  not  combined  with  a  tragic  blindness  in 
seeking  the  road  to  the  goal  of  this  longing. 

Therefore,  I  suppose,  none  of  us  elders  can 
look  upon  a  throng  of  young  people  without 
being  touched  by  the  deepest  sadness;  these 
young  people  who  as  yet  only  perceive  the 
roar  of  life  as  one  hears  the  roar  of  the  sea 
by  putting  a  shell  to  one's  ear,  but  who  are 
already  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  sea 
itself.  And,  once  there,  they  will  either  halt 
in  dismay  upon  the  shore,  or  senselessly 
throw  themselves  into  the  surf  and  go  under; 
or  finally  here  and  there  one  will  build  him- 
self a  boat  and  steer  his  course  towards  the 
shore  of  which  they  dreamed,  when  as  yet 
they  only  heard  the  roar  of  life  as  we  hear  the 
sea  roar  in  a  shell. 

Those  who  stay  upon  the  hither  shore 
usually  receive  the  congratulations  of  their 
elders,  for  having  recognised  in  time  the 
"claims  of  reality." 

As  though  anything  were  more  real  than 
the  dream  itself,  the  dream  and  those  actions 


Activity  and  Self-Culture  53 

that  bring  us  even  a  single  step  nearer  to  the 
world  of  our  dreams ! 

But  when  so-called  realities  hinder  us 
outwardly  in  such  actions,  then  our  refuge 
from  despair  over  intractable  "reality"  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  the  knowledge  that  there  is 
one  sphere  in  which  we  can  labour  unceasingly 
for  the  future;  nay,  that  this  labour  is  actu- 
ally the  most  essential  of  all  constructive 
effort.  This  sphere  is  our  own  soul. 

The  neglect  of  this  self -culture  is  the  pro- 
f  oundest  of  the  causes  that  explain  why  a  great 
movement  is  often  so  poor  in  results ;  why  it  be- 
comes ineffectual  long  before  it  has  implanted 
its  ideas  in  customs  and  laws.  Its  adherents 
were  too  small  for  the  conception,  it  had  no  real- 
ity within  themselves  and  therefore  had  no  pow- 
er to  effect  a  profound  transformation  of  reality. 

Yes,  when  this  "reality"  confronts  them 
like  a  gigantic  wave,  then  the  heralds  of  the 
idea  fall  away  in  crowds.  And  there  are 
even  poets  who  console  them  by  declaring 
their  defection  to  be  inevitable: 

Thou  wilt  fall  away,  as  all  of  us  have  done, 
Even  if  thou  fix  thine  eyes  upon  a  star: 
For  even  the  stars  of  heaven  fall. 

STRINDBERG,  Master  Olof. 


54          The  Younger  Generation 

We  know  that  this  thought  is  as  untrue  as 
its  image.  We  may  outgrow  an  earlier  belief, 
but  never  desert  the  one  we  hold;  we  may 
perish,  but  never  fall  away. 

The  consolatory  truth  has  been  expressed 
by  another  poet-artist  in  a  relief,  in  which 
humanity — young  and  old,  strong  and  weak, 
men  and  women,  lonely  and  united — reaches 
up  towards  the  stars,  the  stars  that  all  these 
longing  hands  sometimes  almost  touch.  But 
their  hands  ever  encounter  the  "line  of  limita- 
tion" dividing  them  from  the  constellations 
which  their  longing  eternally  seeks  but  never 
reaches. 

Fortunately — for  then  our  longing  would 
cease.  And  our  longing  is  the  breath  of  our 
soul,  its  very  life.  He  who,  either  through 
the  nature  of  his  co-operation  with  others  or 
through  that  of  his  self -culture,  loses  the  force 
of  this  longing  beyond  himself,  that  man  ap- 
plies neither  the  one  nor  the  other  to  his 
edification.  And  the  work  of  such  a  man  will 
be  of  no  essential  value  to  the  whole.  Only 
when  our  longing  lives,  grows,  and  rises  with 
an  ever  purer  flame  towards  an  ever  higher 
goal,  do  we  bring  ourselves  and  our  race  nearer 
to  that  fairer  future,  of  which  we  and  many 
generations  after  us  can  only  have  a  vague 


Activity  and  Self-Culture          55 

glimpse,  but  which — thanks  to  the  longing  and 
toil  of  our  generation  and  of  all  before  it  and 
many  to  come — one  generation  will  finally 
behold,  not  as  in  a  glass  darkly,  but  face  to 
face. 


Ill 

THE  PEACE  PROBLEM 


57 


Ill 

THE   PEACE   PROBLEM 

EVERY  movement  that  transforms  the  world 
is  begun  by  dreamers.  Their  prophecies 
are  treated  as  crimes  or  condemned  as  mad- 
ness, until  they  have  sunk  so  deeply  into 
men's  consciences  as  to  dominate  them  with 
the  power  of  a  problem  that  must  be  solved. 

And  this  is  also  the  history  of  the  peace 
movement. 

When  Shelley — whose  intuition  divined  all 
the  problems  that  now  agitate  our  race — in 
the  morning  of  last  century  sang  of  peace, 
he  was  looked  upon  as  a  criminal  lunatic. 
And  the  two  Americans,  who  in  1810  founded 
the  first  Peace  Society,  were  judged  to  be 
great  fools.  For  this  humble  first  attempt  to 
realise  the  peace  on  earth  that  had  had  its 
advocates  even  in  the  days  of  the  prophets 
of  Israel  and  the  philosophers  of  antiquity, 
this  attempt  was  made  just  at  the  time  when, 
through  Napoleon,  the  glory  and  honour  of 

59 


6o          The  Younger  Generation 

war  had  more  than  ever  intoxicated  the 
imagination  of  mankind. 

Can  these  dreamers  have  had  even  an 
inkling  of  the  dimensions  to  which  the  peace 
movement  would  spread  after  the  lapse  of  a 
century?  A  network  of  arbitration  treaties 
and  peace  societies  surrounds  the  earth. 
Congress  after  congress  assembles  to  debate 
the  question  of  peace.  It  is  no  longer  looked 
upon  as  the  madness  of  a  feeble  brain.  No, 
the  problem  of  peace  is  now  one  of  the  serious 
subjects  of  legal  and  social  science,  one  of  the 
great  questions  of  practical  politics ;  the  cause 
has  passed  through  the  phase  of  Utopian  pro- 
posals and  is  now  definitely  within  the  sphere 
of  the  attainable. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  it  is  neither  the  older 
peace  movement  nor  the  newer  pacifism  that 
works  most  powerfully  for  peace. 

The  great  pacific  propaganda  has  been 
carried  out  by  international  co-operation  and 
exchange  of  values;  by  traffic  in  ideas  and 
material  products ;  which  have  formed  an  ever 
more  intimate  connection,  an  ever  stronger 
community  of  interests,  an  ever  closer  de- 
pendence between  nations.  A  hundred  years 
ago  a  war  might  break  out  between  two  States ; 
now  every  war  embraces  the  whole  world,  for 


The  Peace  Problem  61 

nations  have  gone  so  far  in  their  uninten- 
tional but  incessant  coalescence  that  a  war 
has  become  a  serious  interference  with  the 
existence  of  all.  This  fact  has  rendered  acute 
outbreaks  of  war  less  frequent,  but  in  arma- 
ments the  latent  state  of  war  continues.  And 
it  will  continue,  until  the  nations  seek  their 
safety  in  that  economic  and  political  organisa- 
tion which  alone  can  put  an  end  to  the  anarchy 
at  present  reigning  within  and  between  nations. 

Pacifists  of  the  older  school  base  their  hopes 
of  peace  on  arbitration  tribunals,  disarma- 
ment, refusal  of  military  service,  and  so  on. 
But  none  of  these  things  can  bring  about 
peace,  so  long  as  the  anarchy  referred  to  per- 
sists. Arbitration  will  only  be  resorted  to  in 
such  cases  as — in  the  words  of  the  familiar 
reservation — "do  not  affect  the  honour  or  the 
vital  interests"  of  the  States  concerned.  The 
disarmament  of  a  single  State  would  only 
mean  its  voluntarily  becoming  the  prey  of  a 
fully-armed  one.  Wholesale  refusal  of  mili- 
tary service  would  only  result  in  a  return  to 
armies  of  mercenaries. 

For  these  reasons  the  newer  pacifists  con- 
sider that  the  propaganda  in  action  which 
cannot  fail  to  hasten  on  peace  consists  in 
promoting  everywhere  firm  and  binding  inter- 


62          The  Younger  Generation 

national  institutions.  With  inevitable  neces- 
sity these  must  finally  be  crowned  by  the 
superstructure  of  a  confederation  of  States, 
which  will  really  and  permanently  supersede 
the  state  of  war  and  usher  in  the  state  of  peace. 

This  State  of  States  would  still  be  formed, 
even  if  the  whole  peace  movement  came  to  an 
end.  For  it  will  come  about  by  the  force  of 
circumstances,  which  are  doing  more  and  more 
to  abolish  isolation  and  to  create  a  solidarity 
among  nations  in  the  form  of  institutions. ' 

So  long,  says  Dr.  Fried,  as  the  friends  of 
peace  hoped  to  gain  their  end  by  means  of 
contrivances  which  had  no  vital  connection 
with  actuality,  they  were  still  in  the  Utopian 
stage.  The  moment  they  begin  to  promote 
the  organic  coalescence  of  nations  and  the 
natural  conversion  of  men's  minds,  the  peace 
problem  will  have  quitted  the  domain  of 
Utopia  for  that  of  reality.2 

1  The  man  who  first  brought  the  cause  of  peace  within  the 
province  of  science  was  the  Swede,  Gustaf  Bjorklund,  in  his 
book,  Nationernas  sammanvaxande  ("The  Coalescence  of  Na- 
tions"). As  this  book  has  unfortunately  never  been  translated 
into  any  of  the  European  languages,  Dr.  A.  Fried,  the  editor  of 
Die  Friedenswarte,  was  independent  of  Bj6rklund  in  arriving  at 
the  same  point  of  view.  This  he  has  developed  in  his  pamphlet, 
Die  Grundlagen  des  revolutionaren  Pazifismus,  which  deserves  a 
wide  circulation. 

1  The  difference  may  best  be  illustrated  by  a  comparison  with 
socialism,  at  the  time  when  it  was  trying  to  solve  its  problems 


The  Peace  Problem  63 

Although  the  pacifist  knows  that  peace  on 
earth  will  finally  arrive  even  without  his 
prayers,  he  is  at  the  same  time  aware  that 
the  life  and  happiness  of  many  generations  de- 
pend in  part  on  his  conscious  acceleration 
of  the  development  that  is  now  slowly 
taking  place. 

And  this  conscious  influence  may  be  exerted 
either  in  the  field  of  politics  or  in  that  of 
psychology,  through  the  conversion  of  men's 
minds.  Not  such  a  conversion  as  Tolstoy 
hoped  for — one  which  would  abolish  all  strife 
— for  strife  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  develop- 
ment, but  a  transformation  which  would  give 
strife  nobler  and  more  rational  weapons  than 
those  of  war. 

The  lines  of  politics,  like  those  of  the  spirit, 
began  to  take  a  different  direction  when  the 
phase  of  industrialism  succeeded  that  of 
militarism.  And  to-day  it  is  not  on  account 
of  a  warlike  disposition  that  the  nations  con- 
tinue their  rivalry  of  armaments.  No,  it  is 
because  they  now  desire  peace  and  look  upon 
armaments  as  doubtless  a  costly,  but  excellent 

by  the  construction  of  ideal  communities,  and  now,  when  it  knows 
that  the  new  society  will  grow  organically  out  of  the  given  con- 
ditions. 


64          The  Younger  Generation 

form  of  insurance.  If  its  premiums  could  be 
exchanged  for  cheaper  and  securer  ones,  the 
majority  would  prefer  the  latter. 

There  are,  of  course,  still  to  be  found  iso- 
lated advocates  of  war  as  a  means  to  the 
ethical  regeneration  of  peoples.  But  the 
peoples  themselves  are  probably  little  in- 
clined for  this  reason  to  remain  in  a  state  of 
war,  provided  they  can  find  an  adequate  sub- 
stitute for  war  as  an  agency  of  power.  That 
capitalists  and  military  men  still  prefer  the 
old  method  is  certainly  not  due  to  ethical 
motives,  but  to  perfectly  natural  egoistic 
causes. 

There  are  a  great  many  pacifists  and  social- 
ists who  put  their  faith  in  new  legal  arrange- 
ments and  hope  that,  when  these  have  been 
introduced,  they  will  have  the  effect  of  turn- 
ing men's  minds.  And  no  doubt  what  is 
legally  enacted  has  a  great  power  over  the 
mental  life  of  the  masses.  But  until  those 
in  power  adopt  new  views,  no  new  legal  mea- 
sures will  be  introduced.  And  thus  it  remains 
necessary  to  promote  pacific  opinions,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  strengthen  the  possibility 
of  counteracting  incitements  to  war  and  of 
furthering  international  coalescence,  through 
the  development  of  international  arbitration, 


The  Peace  Problem  65 

through  treaties,  and  through  other  parlia- 
mentary or  legal  institutions. x 

Little  else  can  be  done  to  hasten  forward 
the  cause  of  peace.  For  the  new  discoveries 
which  transform  the  economic  and  intellectual 
condition  of  each  nation,  the  political  events 
which  give  rise  to  new  experiences,  the  con- 
sequences produced  by  prevailing  circum- 
stances— all  these  things  demand  patience 
and  observation. 

The  current  opinions  which  have  first  of  all 
to  be  influenced  are  undoubtedly  those  which 
at  present  retard  economic  organisation  within 
and  between  nations.  For  until  the  anarchy 
of  free  competition  is  done  away  with  and  the 
economic  democracy  established  by  law,  the 
international  organisation  of  States  cannot 
succeed.  The  avidity  of  capitalism  for  ex- 

1  See  A.  Fried's  pamphlet,  Das  Internationale  Leben  der  Gegen- 
wart,  in  which  he  shows  that  the  organisation  of  States  has  already 
some  one  hundred  administrative  bodies  at  its  disposal.  These 
are  concerned  with  traffic,  trade,  civil  rights,  police,  science, 
social  policy,  agriculture,  and  war.  There  are  at  this  moment 
about  forty  international  boards  and  commissions  in  existence. 
"The  nations  have  long  ago  emerged  from  the  phase  of  co-opera- 
tion that  consists  in  congresses,  conferences,  etc.  The  solidarity 
of  peoples  has  begun  to  condense  from  the  nebulae  of  ideas  and 
speeches  into  institutions,  which  already  benefit  all  nations 
equally,  without  in  any  way  disturbing  national  integrity,  which 
the  organisation  of  peace  should  aim,  in  fact,  at  preserving. " 
5 


66          The  Younger  Generation 

pansion  and  profit  is  even  now  the  most 
dangerous  motive  for  war.  Before  long  uni- 
versal trusts  will  be  able  to  order  their  wars 
in  whatever  form,  colour,  and  size  they  require 
them.  Armaments  are  actually  kept  up  to 
defend  the  colonial  interests  of  capitalists. 
So  long  as  the  capitalists  lend  money  for  war 
and  make  money  out  of  armaments,  they  will 
contrive  that  the  people  shall  be  hypnotised 
into  the  belief  that  it  is  their  welfare  and 
honour  the  armaments  are  to  defend.  So 
long  as  two  peoples  exist  within  every  nation 
and  every  nation  is  the  economic  rival  of  the 
rest,  arbitration  treaties  will  be  like  dams  of 
shavings  to  keep  out  the  sea,  and  there  will  be 
no  prospect  of  combining  the  separate  States 
into  a  higher  unity.  Only  when  their  con- 
flicts are  no  longer  the  result  of  economic 
interests  will  it  be  possible  to  find  their  solu- 
tion in  new  legal  expedients. 

Therefore  the  economic  organisation  can- 
not be  the  result  of  the  political,  but  vice  versa, 
as  the  socialists  have  often  insisted.  But  in 
spite  of  this  difference  of  opinion,  which  time 
will  decide,  pacifists  and  socialists  are  working 
indirectly  for  each  other's  ends.  For  both 
are  trying  to  awaken  the  consciences  and  open 
the  minds  of  men  to  the  truth  that  solidarity 


The  Peace  Problem  67 

within  and  between  the  nations  promotes  the 
advantage  of  all  better  than  isolation. * 

Solidarity  instead  of  isolation  means: 
co-operation  instead  of  competition; 
organisation  instead  of  anarchy; 
economy  of  force  instead  of  waste; 
harmony  instead  of  confusion. 

By  the  path  of  solidarity  humanity  will  also 
finally  arrive  at  the  justice  and  fraternity  from 
which  Tolstoy  and  his  disciples  expect  peace — • 
but  in  vain.  In  the  present  state  of  economic 
and  political  anarchy  men  are  able  to  show 
mercy  to  the  downtrodden.  But,  speaking 
generally,  no  fraternity  can  be  realised  until 
our  race  has  found  a  way  of  performing  the  first 
duty  incumbent  on  every  individual  and  every 
nation:  that  of  prevailing  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  A  Tolstoy,  who  does  not  reckon 
with  human  nature  as  it  is,  or  with  the 
development  of  civilisation  in  its  present 
endless  complications,  who  believes  in  the  love 

1  The  insular  people  in  its  "splendid  isolation"  has  given  the 
principle  its  tersest  formulas:  In  economics,  "Every  man  for 
himself  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost";  In  politics,  "My 
country,  right  or  wrong."  The  doctrine  of  solidarity,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  "One  for  all  and  all  for  one";  its  patriotism  mani- 
fests itself  above  all  in  the  desire  to  see  one's  own  country  lead 
the  way  with  its  sense  of  justice. 


68          The  Younger  Generation 

of  one's  neighbour  as  a  universal  quality  and 
in  a  return  to  primitive  conditions  as  a  means 
to  happiness,  may  preach  of  brotherly  love  as 
the  road  to  peace.  The  future  will  show 
brotherly  love  to  be  the  latest  fruit  of  that 
economic  and  political  peace  which  can  only 
be  attained  through  an  ever  higher  organisa- 
tion of  economic  and  political  life ;  an  organisa- 
tion which  will  realise  in  laws  and  customs  the 
idea  of  mutual  help,  that  is,  of  community 
of  interests,  that  is,  of  solidarity. 

To  win  over  men's  brains  to  the  idea  of 
solidarity,  that  is  the  surest  way  of  working 
for  peace. 

But  to  implarit  this  idea  in  their  brains 
involves  what  is  just  the  difficulty.  For  in 
men's  brains  prejudices  debar  the  entry  of 
new  ideas.  The  .majority  is  incapable  of 
forming  its  opinions  by  means  of  its  own 
observation,  its  own  brain-work,  its  own 
selection. 

In  other  words,  the  majority  is  talked  over. 
The  power  of  suggestion  explains  why  certain 
ideas  are  ineradicable.  Every  opportunity 
of  testing  the  value  of  an  opinion,  of  revising 
a  judgment,  of  admitting  a  new  view,  is 
rejected.  Brains  become  rigid,  and  in  this 
rigidity  superannuated  prejudices  are  pre- 


The  Peace  Problem  69 

served  as  freshly  as  the  primeval  mammoth  in 
the  polar  ice. 

One  of  these  ancient  prejudices  is  that 
"war  must  always  be  the  final  arbiter  between 
rival  claims." 

It  only  needs  a  few  bellicose  newspapers  to 
word  the  head-lines  of  their  leading  articles 
skilfully,  for — let  us  say — the  German  Peter 
and  the  English  Paul,  who  yesterday  did  not 
dream  of  any  conflict  between  their  two 
peoples,  to  shout  to-morrow  for  war  and 
armaments  to  defend  the  "vital  interests" 
of  their  respective  nations. 

War  and  armaments  are  inseparably  con- 
nected in  most  minds  with  patriotism  and 
sense  of  duty.  It  would  require  a  very 
powerful  shock  to  dissolve  this  association  and 
prepare  the  way  for  the  idea  that  the  same 
motives — patriotism  and  sense  of  duty — may 
give  rise  to  two  series  of  actions,  entirely 
different  from  each  other. 

He  who  perceives  that  rivalry  in  armaments 
is  just  what  stirs  up  unrest  and  ill-will;  that 
nowadays  the  inanimate  part  of  war  material 
is  obsolescent  even  before  contracts  are  com- 
pleted ;  that  the  cost  of  this  apparatus  of  war 
deprives  nations  of  the  means  of  increasing 
their  forces  of  life  and  culture — in  other  words, 


70          The  Younger  Generation 

their  most  important  means  of  defence, — he 
who  perceives  this  will  oppose  outbreaks  of 
war  and  demands  for  military  preparations 
precisely  on  account  of  his  deep  feeling  for  the 
worth  and  security  of  his  native  land,  which 
he  regards  as  more  firmly  guaranteed  by  new 
means. 

If  we  would  direct  the  attention  of  mankind 
to  these  new  means,  we  must  address  ourselves 
to  the  young.  Their  minds  are  still  plastic  to 
impressions,  open  to  new  ideas,  alive.  But 
as  soon  as  the  average  person  is  claimed 
by  the  duties  of  his  calling  and  of  society,  he 
gradually  becomes  hardened  to  impressions, 
closed  to  ideas,  and  at  last  spiritually  dead. 
His  faculty  of  discernment  has  been  com- 
pressed into  a  narrow  receptacle  for  current 
opinions,  which  then  with  unfailing  certainty 
glide  along  the  well-worn  tracks,  and  the 
automatic  brain  is  complete. 

In  so  far  as  the  average  woman  is  taken  up 
by  professional  and  social  work,  perhaps  she 
too  becomes  spiritually  dead. 

But  at  present  women,  young  and  old, 
possess  greater  mental  mobility  than  men  of 
the  corresponding  age.  And  it  is  this  greater 
spiritual  animation  in  woman  that  has  given 


The  Peace  Problem  71 

her  throughout  the  centuries  her  great  import- 
ance as  a  converter  of  souls,  an  importance 
which  can  only  be  compared  with  that  once 
possessed  by  the  Church. 

So  long  as  the  latter  was  Christian,  it 
exercised  its  influence  both  in  a  pacific  and  in 
a  socialistic  spirit.  But  since  the  State  allied 
itself  with  the  Church,  the  latter  has  dechris- 
tianised  mankind  by  giving  its  sanction  to  the 
doctrine  that  might  is  right.  Clericalism, 
capitalism,  militarism  now  uphold,  each  in  its 
own  fashion,  the  principle  of  individual  and 
national  isolation  against  that  of  solidarity. 
And  in  so  far  as  women  are  inclined  to  cleri- 
calism, capitalism,  and  militarism,  they  too 
are  amenable  to  the  suggestion  that  questions 
of  national  "honour  and  vital  interests" 
coincide  with  the  views  of  the  capitalists,  the 
cabinet,  the  generals,  and  the  bishops  on  these 
questions.  These  women — and  they  are  not 
a  few — must  at  present  be  left  out  of  the 
reckoning  as  regards  the  conversion  of  souls. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  women  are  really 
Christian,  they  feel  that  pacifism  and  social- 
ism possess  more  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  than 
capitalism  and  militarism,  and  they  use  their 
influence  for  solidarity  against  isolation. 

But  it  is  not  from  the  Christians — whether 


72          The  Younger  Generation 

women  or  men — that  we  may  expect  a  sweep- 
ing spiritual  conversion  to  proceed. 

An  influence  powerful  enough  to  transform 
the  instincts,  to  turn  immemorial  feelings  into 
new  channels,  to  evoke  new  manifestations  of 
will-power  and  establish  new  goals  for  our 
desire,  such  an  influence  only  belongs  to  a 
new  view  of  life,  a  new  religious  belief. 

A  great  many  women  and  men  are  already 
inspired  by  such  a  belief.  They  know  that 
they  live  in  a  world  formed  out  of  worlds 
that  have  passed  away,  and  they  know  that 
they  themselves  are  the  descendants  of  in- 
numerable experimental  forms,  the  result  of 
the  action  of  millions  of  years.  They  honour 
themselves  as  creatures  of  this  cosmos  of 
everlasting  being  and  becoming,  and  as  col- 
laborators in  it.  They  thus  hold  an  altogether 
new  view  of  their  solidarity  with  all  other 
beings  within  their  own  race  and  outside  it. 
The  profound  saying  of  the  East,  Tat  twam  asi 
— that  thou  art — is  beginning  to  determine 
feelings  also  in  western  lands.  And  thereby 
the  Occidental's  repugnance  to  spreading  de- 
struction around  him  is  increased.  If  he  is 
forced  to  do  this  within  his  own  race,  he  feels 
it  as  a  suicide. 

Side  by  side  with  this  sense  of  solidarity 


The  Peace  Problem  73 

grows  the  consciousness  of  the  possible  value 
of  the  individual  to  the  race.  A  single 
human  being  may  signify  to  the  race  a  force 
that  has  never  before  existed  and  will  never 
recur.  The  men  of  the  new  age  look  both  to 
the  sense  of  solidarity  and  to  individualism, 
not  only  to  preserve  their  own  lives  and  raise 
them  to  their  highest  and  noblest  potentialities 
but  also  to  enhance  the  nature  of  the  life  of 
the  race  and  the  energy  with  which  it  is  lived. 

In  that  view  of  existence  which  saw  in 
earthly  life  nothing  but  a  respite  and  a  pre- 
paration for  eternal  judgment,  only  the  im- 
penitent could  die  prematurely.  Otherwise 
death,  even  on  the  battlefield,  always  came 
at  the  right  moment.  Now,  however,  the 
belief  that  life  itself  is  the  meaning  of  life  has 
penetrated  so  deeply  into  the  consciousness 
of  the  time  that  a  number  of  people  uncon- 
sciously act  according  to  it.  Many  social 
workers,  for  instance,  believe  themselves  to  be 
only  actuated  by  the  Christian  motive  of 
alleviating  suffering.  But  the  effect  of  their 
work  is  nevertheless  precisely  that  of  rais- 
ing the  standard  of  life,  of  preserving  and 
enhancing  living  values. 

And  since  women  have  long  been  the  more 
active  in  the  sphere  of  social  aid,  they  are 


74          The  Younger  Generation 

beginning  to  see  more  clearly  than  men  that 
war  stands  in  the  most  glaring  opposition  to 
all  our  best  efforts  during  peace.  This  "anti- 
military  agitation"  is  going  on  everywhere 
and  with  such  rapidly  growing  strength  that 
any  legislation  aimed  against  antimilitarist 
propaganda,  to  be  logical,  ought  to  begin  by- 
suppressing  works  of  charity! 

With  increasing  consciousness  the  present 
age  longs  to  find  a  way  of  freeing  our  race  from 
the  insane  contradiction  by  which  the  most 
zealous  efforts  of  peace  time — the  enhance- 
ment of  life — are  destroyed  by  war  time. 
Woman,  through  being  shut  up  behind  walls 
for  ages,  has  been  strengthened  in  her  long- 
ing. Man  has  been  able  to  translate  his 
longing  into  action;  woman  has  had  to  store 
hers  up.  Now  she  has  this  force  of  her  longing 
to  devote  to  the  cause  of  peace. 

The  desire  of  peace  has  found  the  strongest 
of  its  new  motives  in  the  hope  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race  which  has  been  infinitely 
increased  by  the  doctrine  of  evolution. 

So  long  as  the  classical  idea  of  the  State 
governed  men's  minds,  fathers  and  mothers 
brought  up  their  sons  to  be  warriors — as  they 
do  to  this  day  in  Japan — without  questioning 
the  right  of  the  State  to  sacrifice  them  to  its 


The  Peace  Problem  75 

ends.  Mothers  exhorted  their  sons  to  die 
bravely  for  the  power  and  honour  of  the 
State,  which  were  looked  upon  as  the  highest 
values,  to  be  not  only  preserved  but  increased 
by  every  means.  Christianity  succeeded  only 
in  partially  transforming  this  conception  of 
the  State,  to  which — in  spite  of  its  own  individ- 
ualism— it  was  obliged  to  adapt  itself.  Only 
in  our  time  has  the  idea  of  development  made 
of  the  race  a  holier  conception  than  the  State. 

It  is  not,  as  some  philosophers  endeavour 
to  make  out,  an  exaggerated  assertion  of  the 
ego,  a  severance  of  the  individual  from  the 
common  bond,  that  has  given  rise  to  the  pre- 
sent hatred  of  war  and  desire  for  peace.  No, 
it  is  our  recognition  of  the  fact  that  what 
have  hitherto  been  called  the  ends  of  the 
State  have  often  stood  in  opposition  to  certain 
higher  ends,  which  individuals  desire  to  serve 
in  and  through  the  race. 

The  people  of  the  present  day  are  beginning 
to  deny  the  unconditional  right  of  the  State 
to  demand  sacrifices.  Whereas  formerly  the 
citizens  existed  exclusively  in  the  interests  of 
the  State,  a  large  number  of  men  and  a  still 
larger  number  of  women  now  consider  that  the 
State  exists  for  the  citizens.  Whereas  form- 
erly the  State  unhesitatingly  directed  its 


76          The  Younger  Generation 

policy  towards  such  ends  as  territorial  expan- 
sion and  colonial  adventures,  its  right  of 
sacrificing  to  such  objects  the  highest  values 
of  the  race — the  young  lives,  the  protection 
and  enhancement  of  which  ought,  on  the 
contrary,  to  be  the  first  duty  of  the 
State — is  now  contested  with  increasing 
energy. 

Many  men  and  women  now  regard  it  as 
their  highest  contribution  to  culture  to  be 
the  parents  of  the  new  generation.  They 
feel  it  to  be  a  blasphemy  against  life — another 
name  for  God — that  the  beings  their  love  has 
called  into  existence  and  fostered  with  infinite 
care,  the  beings  who  bear  the  heritage  of  all 
past  generations  and  the  potentialities  of  all 
those  to  come,  should  be  prematurely  torn  out 
of  the  chain  of  development. 

Every  such  link  that  is  wrenched  away  from 
unborn  experiences,  from  unfinished  work, 
was  a  beginning  which  might  have  had  the 
most  far-reaching  effects  within  the  race- 
since  all  its  most  excellent  qualities  were  the 
creation  of  individual  powers,  individual 
claims  and  passions,  individual  joys  and 
sorrows. 

In  this  view  of  life  the  loss  of  a  promising 
or  already  valuable  human  life  can  only  be 


The  Peace  Problem  77 

counterbalanced  by  great  gains  to  the  race 
as  a  whole. T 

For  it  is  not  death  that  the  men  of  the  new 
age  are  afraid  of,  but  only  premature  and 
meaningless  death.  The  natural,  calm  extinc- 
tion in  the  evening  of  life,  or  a  death  in  the 
morning  or  noontide  of  life,  when  it  is  the 
highest  expression  of  life,  that  is  the  death  they 
desire. 

That  to  die  fighting  for  one's  country  was 
often  a  similar  enhancement  of  life  in  former 
days  may  be  believed.2  But  the  wars  of  the 
present  day  seldom  allow  of  such  a  death.  At 
great  distances  and  in  the  midst  of  madden- 
ing terrors  war  transforms  living  masses  of 
men  into  heaps  of  mangled  flesh  and  pools 
of  blood. 

And  this  massacre  does  not  fall  upon  the 
oldest  of  the  nation,  those  who  have  already 
made  their  contribution  to  life,  nor  upon  the 

1  The  sacrifices  demanded  by  the  conquest  of  the  air  may  be 
mentioned  as  examples — that  conquest  which  is  already  being 
exploited  in  the  service  of  war! — or  the  sacrifices  claimed  by 
experiments  with  radium,  X-rays,  and  electricity  among  scienti- 
fic men,  especially  surgeons. 

aBut  fair  as  the  poets  have  sung  it,  the  warrior's  death  can 
never  have  been.  In  this  case  the  arts  of  painting  and  sculp- 
ture have  been  more  truthful;  I  recall  in  particular  the  "  masks 
of  dying  warriors"  that  bear  witness — in  the  very  Arsenal  of 
Berlin — to  the  bitterness  of  death  in  battle. 


78          The  Younger  Generation 

degenerates — there  would  be  some  sense  in 
that — no,  it  is  just  the  young  that  are  mowed 
down,  and  among  them  the  strongest,  the 
most  valuable  for  the  works  of  peace,  the 
best  fitted  to  be  the  fathers  of  the  new 
generation.  * 

It  is  not  only  while  performing  their  defen- 
sive military  service  that  the  young  are  placed 
in  the  cruel  position  of  having  to  slay  or  be 
slain.  This  unsought  duty  may  lead  to  their 
being  involved  in  adventures  of  territorial 
conquest  and  colonial  expansion.  And  during 

1  The  apologists  of  war  now  quote  the  sacrifices  claimed  by 
peaceful  labour  to  prove  that,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  advance 
of  civilisation  demands  human  life  and  that  it  is  immaterial 
whether  the  victims  are  claimed  by  the  battlefield  or  the  factory. 
Thus,  for  instance,  German  statistics  show  that  during  the 
period  1886-1906,  141,049  persons  were  killed  in  the  field  of 
labour,  and  1,552,749  injured,  of  whom  871,490  were  seriously 
injured. 

But  these  accidents  are  for  the  most  part  caused  by  absence 
of  protective  measures,  by  fatigue  resulting  from  insufficient 
nourishment  and  excessive  work,  etc.  And  the  number  of  these 
victims  could  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  exacted  by  the  powers 
of  nature,  if  that  moiety  of  the  national  revenue  which  is  now 
applied  to  armaments  were  used  to  provide  good  conditions  of 
life  and  labour  for  the  whole  people.  At  present  there  is  a  short- 
age of  labour  for  those  willing  to  work,  of  food  for  the  hungry, 
of  educational  advantages  for  those  thirsting  for  knowledge,  of 
nursing  for  the  sick,  of  care  for  the  children.  The  circumstances 
of  the  majority  are  now  such  as  to  produce,  directly  or  indirectly, 
crime,  drunkenness,  insanity,  consumption,  or  sexual  diseases  in 
large  sections  of  the  population. 


The  Peace  Problem  79 

their  period  of  training  the  young  are  deprived 
of  valuable  time  and  still  more  valuable  civil 
rights;  since  men  liable  to  service  are  still 
subject  to  exceptional  laws,  which  aim  at 
turning  them  into  instruments  of  war,  not 
independent  citizens,  and  result  in  killing 
them  spiritually. 

Although  compulsory  service  has  thus  acted 
as  a  wholesale  hypnotising  in  the  interests  of 
militarism,  it  has  had  at  the  same  time — 
among  the  more  thoughtful — a  powerful  anti- 
militarist  influence.  It  has  thus  become  one 
of  the  many  bypaths  by  which  mankind  is 
drawing  near  to  peace. 

This  is  in  the  first  place  apparent  from  the 
fact  that  national  service  has  so  increased  the 
size  of  armies  as  to  make  it  extremely  costly 
to  set  the  apparatus  of  war  in  motion,  for 
which  reason  the  capitalists  hesitate  to  use 
this  machinery  for  the  economic  interests 
that  are  now  the  final  concern  of  war.  And 
every  time  two  States  recoil  from  war,  peace 
has  gained  ground,  for  the  peoples  thereby 
accustom  themselves  to  the  idea  that  conflicts 
can  be  settled  peaceably. 

In  the  next  place,  the  fact  that  war  may 
claim  its  victims  from  every  family  and  every 
calling  has  caused  warlike  excitement  to  lose 


80          The  Younger  Generation 

much  of  its  power  of  inflaming  men's  minds. 
And  with  the  waning  of  warlike  enthusiasm, 
governments  have  lost  something  of  their 
former  courage  for  light-heartedly  plunging 
their  nations  into  war. 

Finally,  the  causes  already  mentioned  are 
increasing  the  repugnance  of  the  young  for 
the — possible — duty  of  murder ;  for  the  parade 
drill,  still  persisting  in  spite  of  reforms,  and 
for  the  occasional  indignities  against  which 
the  conscript  has  no  protection  whatever. 

All  these  reasons  have  co-operated  to  make 
universal  military  service  a  leading  factor  both 
in  the  duration  of  European  peace  and  in  the 
antimilitarist  trend  of  opinion. 

The  young  antimilitarist  party  is  divided 
into  two  groups.  One  of  these  performs  its 
military  service  and  seeks  by  a  conscientious 
fulfilment  of  duty  to  preserve  its  right  to- 
subsequent — criticism  of  the  system.  The 
other  group  avoids  military  service  by  leaving 
the  country  or  refuses  to  perform  it. 

Some,  Tolstoy's  disciples  for  example,  refuse 
on  religious  grounds.  They  hold  that  a  peace- 
ful national  service  should  take  the  place  of 
the  military  duty.  For  a  State  that  calls 
itself  Christian  and  respects  the  right  of 


The  Peace  Problem  81 

freedom  of  conscience  cannot  compel  its 
citizens  to  sin  against  the  sixth  commandment 
of  Moses  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  Jesus. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  those  who  refuse 
military  service  themselves  use  or  approve  of 
force  in  the  social  conflict  and  therefore  do  not 
hate  war  from  religious  motives.  Their  reasons 
for  refusing  service  were  sharply  illuminated 
by  a  young  working-man,  whose  dialogue  with 
an  older  companion  I  heard  in  the  People's 
House  at  Stockholm.  The  elder  man  ob- 
jected that  everyone  defended  himself  when 
personally  attacked.  The  younger  admitted 
that  he  would  do  so  too,  but  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  had  no  intention  of  going  out 
to  defend  "a  so-called  nation." 

I  asked  him  if  he  did  not  feel  that  the  nation 
had  given  him  anything.  The  answer  was  a 
curt  No.  I  could  not  refrain  from  telling 
him  that  a  man  who  does  not  see  that  he  has 
received  anything  from  his  nation  is  one  of 
those  the  nation  can  well  do  without. 

There  are  undoubtedly  many,  in  Sweden 
as  in  other  countries,  who  have  suffered  so 
much  from  unemployment,  want,  or  injustice 
that  they  are  tempted  to  forget  what  their 
country  is  to  them;  to  forget  that  if,  for 
instance,  they  came  under  Russian  rule  they 


82          The  Younger  Generation 

would  suffer  not  only  as  they  do  now,  but  far 
more  in  addition,  through  the  loss  of  many 
advantages  which  they  now  enjoy  as  uncon- 
sciously as  the  air  they  breathe. 

The  leaf  can  no  more  deny  that  the  roots 
and  the  trunk  have  given  it  anything  than  the 
individual  can  deny  that  the  nation  has  been 
of  importance  to  him.  Even  if  the  soil  has 
been  poor  and  the  leaves  have  thus  received 
scanty  nourishment,  even  if  frost  or  drought 
has  impaired  their  freshness  or  shade  their 
full  development,  so  long  as  they  have  not 
broken  away  from  the  branch,  they  still  have 
more  vitality  than  if  they  were  blown  hither 
and  thither  by  the  wind.  And  each  individual 
possesses,  as  a  member  of  a  nation,  a  fulness  of 
life  which  he  can  never  enjoy  when  cut  off  from 
his  stock. 

Therefore  a  peace  movement  that  is  to 
possess  vitality  cannot  proceed  from  the 
error  that  our  nation  has  given  us  nothing, 
but  from  the  conviction  that  it  has  given  us 
an  infinite  abundance;  that  it  is  of  supreme 
importance  to  safeguard  our  language,  our 
land,  our  constitutional  freedom,  and  all  other 
conditions  necessary  to  the  continued  cultural 
development  of  our  people  in  accordance  with 
its  own  inherent  character,  a  character  that  is 


The  Peace  Problem  83 

of  just  as  much  importance  to  the  other  nations 
as  is  that  of  the  individual  to  his  own  sur- 
roundings. 

It  is,  in  fact,  precisely  the  conviction  that 
the  millions  spent  on  armaments  provide  a 
very  ineffectual  guarantee  for  all  our  highest 
national  values — together  with  the  reflection 
that  these  millions,  applied  to  peaceful  pur- 
poses, might  render  possible  an  immense 
enhancement  of  life  and  culture  within  each 
separate  nation — that  determines  the  action 
of  the  radical  and  revolutionary  pacifist.  He 
sees  very  well  that  a  general  strike  of  organ- 
ised labour  in  face  of  the  prospect  of  a  Euro- 
pean war  is,  in  the  present  state  of  things, 
unavailing.  Refusal  of  military  service,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  proposed  to  the  working- 
men  of  Sweden  by  Z.  Hoglund  in  1905,'  and 
as  put  in  practice  in  Spain  in  1909,  may  have 
some  significance  and  justification.  But  the 
newer  pacifism  is  most  decidedly  opposed  to 
any  such  refusal  of  defensive  service  as  might 
result  in  subjecting  the  more  valuable  culture 
to  the  less  valuable,  and  making  the  higher 
human  beings,  nations  or  races  the  victims 
of  those  of  smaller  worth. 

1  At  the  time  of  Norway's  secession  from  the  Union,  when 
feeling  ran  high  in  Sweden. — TR. 


84          The  Younger  Generation 

The  peace  problem  can  no  more  be  solved 
by  the  obliteration  of  nations  than  can  that  of 
socialism  by  making  everyone  uniform.  Be- 
tween the  nations  and  within  each  nation 
standards  of  power  and  tension  of  forces  are 
required  for  national  and  individual  ends. 
By  sometimes  involving  a  noble  tension  of 
strength,  wars  have  also  involved  an  eleva- 
tion of  culture.  And  this  elevation  has  been 
used  as  an  illustration  of  the  cultural  value 
of  war.  That  in  other  respects  war  has  done 
immeasurable  damage  to  culture  and  destroyed 
its  values,  has  evoked  swfc-human  states  of 
mind  and  barbarous  actions, — all  this  is  sup- 
pressed by  those  who  glorify  war  as  a  means  of 
culture.  In  our  day  the  work  of  culture  offers 
many  other  opportunities  for  the  noblest 
exertion,  which  do  not  involve  any  such  cul- 
tural set-back  as  those  just  mentioned.  Not 
merely  the  earth's  surface,  but  the  whole 
cosmos,  now  lies  open  to  conquest.  And  the 
knowledge  of  this  is  gradually  rooting  out  the 
superstition  that  the  maintenance  of  manly 
courage  and  manly  achievement  depends  on 
the  continuance  of  the  state  of  war,  or  that  the 
growth  of  culture  requires  manuring  now  and 
then  with  human  brains  on  the  battlefield. 

In  short,  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  undergoing 


The  Peace  Problem  85 

a  change  in  its  judgment  of  war.  This  change 
may  be  observed  in  innumerable  effects,  each 
small  in  itself,  of  influences  often  impercepti- 
ble; influences  which,  however,  transform 
views,  feelings,  and  dispositions  as  completely 
as  the  waves  of  light  and  heat,  in  which  all 
things  flow,  transform  our  outward  being. 
With  ever-increasing  consciousness  mankind 
longs  for  nobler  and  surer  means  than  war  and 
armaments,  to  secure  the  existence  of  nations, 
both  small  and  great.  Assuredly  there^is 
still  need  to  influence  public  opinion,  but 
especially  in  the  way  of  enlightening  and 
strengthening  the  opposition  to  war  which 
already  exists  in  thought  and  feeling.  For 
to  arouse  such  thoughts  and  feelings  is  now 
unnecessary  outside  certain  "higher"  circles. 

It  is  above  all  from  the  mothers  that  we 
may  hope  for  a  zealous  activity  in  the  spiritual 
conversion  that  must  precede  peace.  The 
mothers,  whose  dearest  treasures  are  the  lives 
of  the  young,  must  use  all  their  influence  against 
war — not  by  forbidding  their  boys  to  play  at 
soldiers  or  by  depreciating  the  warlike  achieve- 
ments of  bygone  days,  for  the  former  would 
be  unpsychological,  the  latter  unhistorical; 
but  by  using  all  their  powers  of  gladness  in 


86          The  Younger  Generation 

making  life  more  valuable  and  all  their  powers 
of  inducement  in  directing  men's  wills  to  the 
task  of  altering  the  conditions  that  favour 
the  continuance  of  war  and  armaments.  The 
mothers  must  teach  their  sons  to  hate  the 
policy  which  may  claim  their  lives  for  objects 
which  they  perhaps  condemn  both  from  a 
political  and  an  ethical  point  of  view.  They 
must  teach  their  sons  to  dream  of  giving 
their  country,  not  a  life,  but  a  life's  work; 
they  must  associate  their  sons'  ambition  and 
self-sacrifice  with  peace  instead  of  with  war. 

The  mothers  have  it  in  their  power,  in  the 
training  of  their  children,  to  help  in  awakening 
the  conscience  and  in  forming  the  reason  of 
the  world. 

Thus  by  degrees  mankind  will  become 
fully  human,  and  thereby  war  will  be  made 
psychically  and  physically  impossible.  For 
the  world's  conscience  will  rebel  against  any 
attempt  at  injustice  or  violence;  the  world's 
reason  against  the  irrational  waste  of  power 
that  war  involves,  even  when  defensive. 
Both  will  finally  unite  to  form  institutions  in 
which  the  highest  human  force — that  of  the 
brain — will  settle  international  disputes,  and 
thus  the  nations  will  attain  the  greatest 
possible  security  with  the  least  possible  loss  of 


The  Peace  Problem  87 

power.  And  another  direct  gain  will  be  that 
of  a  higher  culture,  if  we  define  this,  with  W. 
Ostwald,  as  a  transformation  of  energy,  as  an 
ennobling  of  raw  material  into  human  power. 

But  as  yet  the  power  of  the  mothers,  like 
that  of  other  educators,  is  limited.  Even 
if  the  child's  heart  is  turned  away  from  war, 
the  influences  of  childhood  are  counteracted 
as  soon  as  the  boy  goes  to  school,  through  the 
cadet  corps,  the  patriotic  celebrations,  the 
drill  and  rifle  practice.  And  later  on,  the  man 
comes  into  the  clutches  of  "the  existing  state 
of  things." 

Only  when  women  have  the  right  to  vote 
will  they  be  able  to  work  for  peace  with  full 
seriousness — if  they  then  desire  it.  If  they 
do  not — well,  then  their  new  privileges  will 
not  alter  the  destinies  of  mankind  in  any 
essential  respect. 

Women  ought  to  start  their  political  work 
for  peace  by  making  a  reality  of  defensive 
military  service ;  that  is,  by  demanding  assur- 
ance that  the  conscripts' period  of  training  shall 
not  be  wasted  in  things  that  are  meaningless  for 
their  task ;  that  the  rules  of  discipline,  which  are 
often  offensive  to  the  feeling  of  citizenship  and 
to  personal  self-respect,  shall  be  altered,  and 
finally  that  the  conscript  army  shall  never 


88  The  Younger  Generation 

be  employed  in  aggressive  wars  or  in  those 
civil  conflicts  in  which  a  son  may  be  opposed 
to  his  father  or  a  friend  to  a  friend. 

Further,  women  ought  to  insist  that  agita- 
tion for  war  be  punished  as  antimilitarist 
agitation  is  now.  And  this  new  severity 
would  possess  all  the  justification  which  the 
antimilitarist  laws  lack.  For  the  antimili- 
tarist agitation,  in  spite  of  its  blunders,  is  a 
tentative  beginning  of  a  higher  state  of  things. 
But  warlike  agitation  is  a  survival  from  lower 
stages. 

Women  ought  not  to  be  content  until  gov- 
ernments have  been  deprived  of  the  power  of 
plunging  nations  into  war. 

Women  ought  to  support  all  such  inter- 
national arrangements  as  promote  exchange 
and  co-operation  among  nations :  for  example, 
commercial  treaties,  universal  postage  stamps, 
unity  of  coinage,  weights  and  measures,  etc. 
They  ought  to  work  for  an  international  law 
of  marriage  and  divorce,  a  law  that  is  a  cry- 
ing necessity  in  these  days  of  international 
marriages.  Further  legislation  in  the  direction 
of  greater  uniformity  is  required  for  the  legal 
protection  of  private  persons  and  for  the  treat- 
ment of  criminals  in  foreign  countries,  and  for 
other  purposes  which  cannot  be  gone  into  here. 


The  Peace  Problem  89 

All  this,  however,  would  only  be  prepara- 
tory for  future  international  institutions,  which 
will  become  real  and  effective  when  the  co- 
alescence of  nations  through  all  indirect  influ- 
ences has  reached  such  a  point  that  the 
nations  desire  to  give  direct  expression  to  the 
unity  they  have  attained. 

Until  the  time  arrives  when  they  will  have 
their  share  of  political  power,  women  can 
promote  a  good  understanding  between  the 
nations  in  many  other  ways.  They  can  work 
for  an  international  auxiliary  language  and 
international  characters;  for  international  ex- 
change of  school  children  during  the  holidays ; 
for  international  correspondence,  and  many 
other  things  of  the  same  nature. r 

In  family  life  and  in  social  life,  in  profes- 
sional work  and  public  employment,  in  their 
homes  and  on  their  travels,  women  can  spin 
the  fine  threads  which  will  bind  the  nations 
together.  In  countless  personal  ways  they 
can  strengthen  sympathies  and  promote  re- 
ciprocity between  peoples.  They  can  tear  the 
mask  of  patriotism  from  bellicose  self-interest, 
prick  the  word -bubbles  of  nationalism  and 
laugh  away  worked -up  fears.  They  can  set 

1  The  Dutch  association,  Kosmos,  arranges  the  exchange  of 
correspondence  in  all  languages  and  on  all  subjects. 


90          The  Younger  Generation 

up  the  highest  goals  for  the  political  ambition 
of  their  fathers  and  brothers,  their  husbands 
and  their  sons.  Above  all,  they  can  always 
and  everywhere  ennoble  the  feelings,  refine 
the  idea  of  justice,  and  sharpen  the  judgment 
of  those  who  come  under  their  influence. 

The  indirect  result  of  this  influence  will  then 
be  that  war  will  become  more  and  more 
insufferable  to  the  feelings,  repugnant  to  the 
sense  of  justice,  and  absurd  to  the  intelligence. 

When  thus  the  eyes  of  the  best  among  the 
nation  are  opened  to  the  true  nature  of  war, 
they  will  finally  be  opened  also  to  the  way  to 
real — not  armed — peace. 

People  who  are  impatient  to  see  the  results 
of  their  efforts  are  often  dissuaded  from  devot- 
ing their  energies  to  the  peace  movement  by 
the  thought  that  the  time  for  the  realisation 
of  universal  peace  is  so  far  distant. 

This  is  true.  Not  even  the  most  sanguine 
among  us  believes  that  this  realisation  can  take 
place  earlier  than  in  the  extreme  old  age  of 
those  just  born.  All  that  we  know  with  cer- 
tainty is  that  future  generations  will  live  in 
a  state  of  peace  which  they  will  regard  as 
natural  and  necessary,  and  that  those  genera- 
tions will  be  incapable  of  understanding  how 


The  Peace  Problem  91 

the  present  age  looked  upon  the  state  of  war 
as  natural  and  necessary. 

We,  on  the  other  hand,  who  for  years  have 
believed  in  the  final  victory  of  right  over  might, 
we  shall  not  see  this  victory  during  the  brief 
moment  we  call  our  lifetime.  But  what  can 
that  matter  to  us? 

We  are  in  all,  all  are  in  us.  The  dead 
triumph  in  us,  as  we  shall  triumph  in  those 
yet  unborn.  The  dead  and  the  unborn,  whose 
behests  we  fulfil,  are  the  mighty  ones ;  where- 
as the  movement  produced  even  by  the  strong- 
est of  his  time  is  only  a  wing-beat  in  the 
infinite  ocean  of  air.  But  countless  rapid 
wing-beats  constitute  the  force  that  propels 
humanity  forward  and  upward. 

We  and  our  work  are  the  longing  of  past 
generations  that  has  now  taken  shape;  our 
longing  will  take  shape  in  future  generations 
and  their  work.  We  who  are  now  living  and 
working  will  soon  be  shadows.  But  our 
dreams  are  already  moving  with  white  feet 
in  the  light  of  the  dawn. 


IV 

YOUTH,   WOMAN,   AND  ANTIMILITARISM 


93 


IV 

YOUTH,   WOMAN,   AND  ANTIMILITARISM 

IN  great  souls,  in  tranquil  hearts,  the  dream  of 
*  peace  on  earth  lived  long  before  it  became, 
in  the  message  of  the  angels,  a  promise  from 
heaven  to  mankind.  A  promise  which  ever 
since,  by  generation  after  generation,  has 
been  brought  out  at  Christmas  with  other 
heirlooms,  to  adorn  the  feast.  But  as  soon  as 
Christmas  is  over,  the  treasure  is  always  put 
away  again.  For  mankind  has  been  expecting 
the  promise  of  peace  to  be  fulfilled  in  the 
millennium,  as  an  act  of  heavenly  grace,  not  as 
a  work  of  men. 

Our  age  is  the  first  to  look  upon  peace,  not 
as  a  gift  of  God,  but  as  an  earthly  goal,  which 
grows  nearer  as  humanity  strives  towards  it. 
The  longer  the  peace  movement  continues — 
the  more  it  is  supported,  not  by  the  Christian, 
but  by  the  evolutionary  view  of  life — the 
clearer  does  it  become  that  this  goal  is  a  distant 
one ;  nay,  that  peace  on  earth  will  have  to  be 

95 


96          The  Younger  Generation 

attained  by  a  development  as  slow  as  that 
through  which  our  race  itself  has  arisen. 

As  regards  the  genesis  of  peace  we  are  still 
in  the  first  day  of  creation,  the  day  when  light 
is  separated  from  darkness:  that  is,  the  light 
and  warming  elements  in  patriotism  must  be 
separated  from  the  dark  ones  with  which  they 
are  blended  together  in  the  chaos  that  still 
constitutes  the  mutual  relationship  of  nations ; 
a  chaos  in  which  the  instincts  of  the  savage  and 
the  prejudices  of  the  national  supremacy  still 
usurp  the  name  of  patriotism.  This  separa- 
tion of  light  from  darkness  takes  place  above 
all  in  those  daily  experiences  of  the  "co- 
alescence of  nations,"  which  a  Swedish  thinker, 
the  late  Gustaf  Bjorklund,  showed  with  the 
prophetic  vision  of  genius  to  be  the  way  of  the 
necessary,  constitutional,  organic  genesis  of 
peace.  And  this  coalescence  will  result  in 
the  nations,  themselves  formed  by  the  accre- 
tion of  smaller  units,  being  merged  in  an 
organic  union  that  will  finally  include  the 
whole  of  mankind.  This  union  is  accelerated 
by  every  advance  in  material  and  intellectual 
culture,  above  all  by  the  intercourse  of  the 
present  day — by  land,  by  sea,  and  in  the  air— 
and  by  its  great  industrial  undertakings. 
Mankind  as  a  whole  is  becoming  more  and 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism      97 

more  sensitive  to  interference  with  any  of  its 
parts,  and  each  part  is  becoming  more  and 
more  dependent  on  the  organism  as  a  whole. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  pro- 
spectus of  Folkens  framtid  ("The  Future  of 
the  Nations"),  which  Bjorklund  began  to 
publish  in  1889: 

"Those  movements  and  efforts  of  the  pre- 
sent time,  which  the  future  will  recognise  as 
the  most  significant,  are  often  just  those  that 
are  most  overlooked  and  underrated  by  con- 
temporaries, not  only  because  these  move- 
ments at  their  outset  are  feeble  and  impotent, 
but  because  they  are  opposed  to  the  prevailing 
spirit  of  the  age  and  thus  have  the  appearance 
of  Utopias  or  even  of  errors.  .  .  .  " 

Thus  it  is,  he  continues,  with  a  movement 
that  has  commenced  almost  simultaneously 
in  every  civilised  country,  "the  object  of 
which  is  nothing  less  than  the  abolition  of  war 
and  the  settlement  of  international  disputes 
by  judicial  means.  Adherents  of  this  move- 
ment are  found  in  all  classes  and  callings,  from 
the  manual  labourer  to  members  of  legislative 
assemblies,  scholars,  and  many  of  the  most 
enlightened  and  practical  statesmen  in  the 
world. 

"The  attitude  of  the  public  at  large  towards 


98          The  Younger  Generation 

these  efforts  is  certainly  not  hostile;  on  the 
contrary,  such  a  state  of  things  as  the  friends 
of  peace  aim  at  is  looked  upon  as  highly 
desirable.  But,  they  say,  it  is  impossible. 
History  shows  us  that  wars  will  never  cease. 

"No  reading  of  history  is  more  general  or 
betrays  more  superficiality  than  this.  The 
evidence  of  history  goes  in  a  diametrically 
opposite  direction.  It  teaches  us  that  the 
spheres  within  which  a  state  of  peace  and 
judicial  authority  has  become  a  necessity  by 
the  very  force  of  development,  are  being 
steadily  extended.  Human  communities  be- 
gin as  smaller  units,  which  by  development 
coalesce  into  groups  and  are  merged  into  ever 
higher  and  more  comprehensive  units,  in 
accordance  with  laws  inherent  in  their  nature. 
If  we  survey  historical  development  from  this 
point  of  view,  we  shall  find  that  only  a  few 
centuries  ago  the  nations  now  living  did  not 
exist.  Each  nation  was  then  a  group  of 
independent  provincial  States,  which  stood  in 
the  same  relation  to  each  other  as  nations  at 
the  present  day.  A  few  centuries  further 
back  we  find  these  provincial  States  in  turn 
to  be  groups  of  still  smaller  units  (hundreds, 
for  instance),  which  then  possessed  a  historical 
individuality.  Further  back  again  we  find 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism      99 

these  hundreds  to  be  loosely  connected  aggre- 
gates of  self-subsisting  village  communities, 
whose  mutual  relation  was  that  of  independent 
belligerent  powers. 

"Thus  history  shows  a  slowly  progressive 
extension  of  the  spheres  within  which  a  state 
of  judicial  authority  has  become  a  necessity. 
And  the  national  development  of  our  day 
points  also  in  the  same  direction.  Nothing 
is  more  characteristic  of  our  time  than  the 
serious  exertions  that  are  everywhere  made  to 
preserve  peace  in  the  midst  of  unexampled  and 
steadily  increasing  armaments.  The  fear  of 
war  keeps  the  world  in  a  constant  uneasy 
state  of  excitement  and  the  prospects  of  peace 
are  unceasingly  discussed  in  the  Press.  What 
is  the  cause  of  this?  Has  human  nature,  pos- 
sibly, undergone  some  radical  improvement? 
Assuredly  not.  Doubtless  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  our  manners  have  become  gentler,  our 
way  of  thinking  nobler  and  more  humane,  but 
on  the  whole  we  have  the  same  faults  and 
imperfections,  the  same  passions  and  pro- 
pensities as  former  generations.  The  funda- 
mental causes  are  of  an  entirely  different  kind. 
Through  development  the  interests  of  the 
separate  nations  are  becoming  more  and 
more  bound  together  in  solidarity.  Macaulay 


ioo        The  Younger  Generation 

thought  it  no  exaggeration  to  assert  that  one 
week's  war  on  English  soil  would  produce  mis- 
fortunes and  disturbances  that  would  make 
themselves  felt  from  the  Hoang-ho  to  the 
Missouri,  and  of  which  traces  would  be  per- 
ceptible for  a  period  of  a  century. " 

But  although  the  friend  of  peace  knows  with 
absolute  certainty  that  the  whole  course  of 
development  is  working  indirectly  for  his  ends, 
he  knows  at  the  same  time  that  his  own 
conscious  and  well-directed  work  can  hasten 
the  organisation  of  the  nations  into  an  inter- 
national constitutional  commonwealth,  and  in 
an  even  higher  degree  influence  that  spiritual 
conversion  which  is  the  condition  necessary 
for  the  establishment  of  such  a  commonwealth. 

For  this  conversion  we  ought  to  be  able  in 
the  first  place  to  count  upon  the  preachers  of 
that  religion  which  taught  two  thousand  years 
ago  that  we  are  all  members  of  one  body. 
And  so  long  as  the  Church  was  Christian — that 
is,  possessed  something  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus — 
it  was  also  pacifist.  The  Fathers  of  the  Church 
did  not  misinterpret  the  words  of  Jesus  to 
show  his  approval  of  war.  The  air  was  then 
still  full  of  the  wave  of  warmth  that  Christ- 
ianity brought  with  it.  Every  Christian 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism    101 

felt  that  when  Jesus  spoke  of  rendering  to 
Caesar  the  things  that  were  Caesar's  and  to 
God  the  things  that  were  God's,  he  meant 
by  the  latter  the  soul,  but  a  soul  liberated  from 
the  very  passions  that  evoke  and  maintain  the 
state  of  war  among  the  nations. 

Now,  in  the  time  of  the  dechristianised 
Church — a  time  in  which  a  genuinely  Christ- 
ian priest  is  the  only  great  miracle  that  can 
still  be  witnessed — it  is  not  to  the  Church 
that  we  can  look  for  the  educational  work 
by  which  men's  minds  are  to  be  trained  for 
the  charter  of  all  nations  that  is  to  supersede 
the  present  state  of  things.  In  our  time  war 
is  only  an  acute  attack  of  a  disease,  in  which 
"armed  peace"  corresponds  to  a  continued, 
progressive  exhaustion;  just  as  an  attack  of 
hemorrhage  shows  the  presence  of  consump- 
tion, though  it  does  not  constitute  the  disease 
itself. 

No,  it  is  from  the  women  of  the  new  age, 
and  above  all  from  the  young  mothers,  that  we 
may  hope  for  a  spiritual  transformation.  Not 
from  the  mothers  of  the  present  day,  as  yet 
uneducated  for  their  calling,  and  often  unfit 
for  it;  mothers  who  still  bring  up  their 
children  by  the  hand  instead  of  by  the  head ; 
who  in  their  system  of  the  rod  are  guided  by 


102         The  Younger  Generation 

the  same  base  and  crude  notions  as  the  men  in 
their  policy  of  war — such  mothers  can  form 
no  souls  for  peace.  Nor  yet  those  mothers 
who  bring  up  their  children  in  the  double- 
faced  morality ;  who  teach  them  as  individuals 
rather  to  suffer  wrong  than  to  do  wrong,  rather 
to  renounce  their  objects  than  to  pursue  them 
by  unworthy  means ;  who  bid  them  put  away 
the  thought  of  vengeance  and  forgive  their 
enemies — but  who  then  with  flaming  eyes  and 
inciting  words  exhort  their  sons,  as  "defenders 
of  their  country,"  to  commit  acts  which,  as 
private  persons,  they  have  learned  to  regard  as 
base.  Least  of  all  can  those  mothers,  who  with 
all  the  breath  of  their  bodies  blow  the  flames 
of  hate  and  fanaticism,  prepare  the  minds  of 
their  children  for  peace.  Only  new  mothers, 
guided  by  the  evolutionary  idea,  penetrated 
by  love  of  life,  will  be  able  to  impart  to  the 
new  generation  an  ever  deeper  veneration  for 
the  work  of  intellectual  and  material  culture, 
an  ever  more  burning  hatred  of  the  waste  of 
life,  the  devastation  of  culture,  the  degrada- 
tion of  souls  which  latent  as  well  as  acute  war 
still  forces  upon  mankind. 

The  spiritual  influence  of  these  new  mothers 
ought  not  to  consist  in  a  thoughtless  depre- 
ciation of  past  times,  when  war  was  still 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism    103 

inevitable  and  the  deeds  it  evoked  were  great 
personal  contributions  to  the  formation  of 
society.  Nor  again  ought  the  influence  of  the 
mothers  to  be  exercised  in  the  preaching  of 
that  doctrine  which  misinterprets  the  funda- 
mental laws  of  life :  that  all  strife  is  evil,  that 
unconditional  surrender  is  the  only  conduct 
ethically  justifiable.  But  they  must  teach 
their  children  to  reverence,  love,  and  serve  life 
with  such  devotion  that  they  will  direct  the 
whole  force  of  their  wills  to  that  field  of 
conflict  which  offers  to  the  energy  of  man  an 
ever-widening  range  as  the  universal  common- 
wealth extends  its  sway ;  precisely  as  reverence, 
love,  and  activity  acquired  a  wider  scope,  a 
deeper  meaning,  when  class  and  local  feeling 
were  expanded  into  national  consciousness 
and  love  of  country. 

The  new  mothers  must  direct  their  sons' 
emulation  and  ambition,  their  imagination  and 
their  will,  to  discoveries  and  inventions,  to 
the  fighting  of  disease  and  the  perfecting  of 
labour,  to  the  saving  of  life  instead  of  its 
destruction,  but  above  all  to  the  purposeful 
perfecting  of  the  organisation  of  society. 
They  must  show  them  how  we  poor  inhabit- 
ants of  earth  are  not  only  exposed  to  dangers 
from  fire,  water,  and  air,  but  also  from  remote 


104         The  Younger  Generation 

but  inevitable  cosmic  revolutions.  In  the 
face  of  these  catastrophes  of  the  present  and 
possibilities  of  the  future  the  mothers  ought 
to  be  able  to  make  their  children  see  what 
madness  it  is,  that  our  race — on  the  little 
lump  of  earth  that  it  possesses  so  insecurely 
in  the  midst  of  the  universe — should  contin- 
ually endeavour  by  means  of  gold  and  iron  to 
enfeeble  and  ruin  itself,  to  waste  the  means  of 
culture,  to  destroy  the  treasures  of  culture, 
and  to  extinguish  vital  values.  Ought  not 
all  the  limbs  and  brains  shattered  on  the 
battlefield,  all  the  power  and  resources  sucked 
up  by  armaments  to  have  been  utilised  in 
making  our  race  better  fitted  to  hold  its  place 
in  nature,  in  the  face  of  whose  terrestrial  and 
extra-terrestrial  revolutions  it  is  still  power- 
less? 

The  mothers  of  the  new  age  must  teach  their 
children  that  a  world  crowded  with  people 
struggling  for  space  and  for  bread,  teeming 
with  States  which — in  order  to  maintain  their 
isolated  sovereignty,  their  tariff  barriers,  their 
armed  defences — lower  the  conditions  of  life 
of  their  inhabitants — that  such  a  world  is 
still  a  chaos,  from  which  a  new  world  must 
arise;  a  world  with  fewer  but  more  perfect 
human  beings,  who  shall  possess  richer  oppor- 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism    105 

tunities,  better  conditions,  greater  security, 
and  higher  forms  of  life.  And  this  will  come 
about  when  all  competition  and  all  co-opera- 
tion takes  place  under  the  auspices  of  universal 
organisation.  Within  this  organisation  the 
unity  of  a  nation  will  be  determined,  not  by 
frontiers  formed  by  conquest,  but  by  inner 
necessity  based  on  history,  language,  and  race. 
In  short,  nations  will  not  become  complete 
individualities  until  the  States  have  passed 
out  of  their  present  stage  of  territorial  separa- 
tion and  entered  that  of  an  international  social 
relationship. 

This  international  organisation  will  protect 
the  rights  of  all,  including  therefore  the  natives 
of  those  countries  which  the  capitalist  colonial 
policy  of  the  present  day  turns  into  a  hell. 

The  political  party  which  is  everywhere 
retarding  international  social  development — 
that  is,  the  capitalists,  who  see  nothing  but 
their  own  interests;  the  clergy,  who  comport 
themselves  like  the  officers  of  God's  general 
staff,  with  His  plans  of  campaign  in  their 
pockets;  the  diplomatists,  who,  free  from 
control,  can  go  their  own  way  or  that  of  their 
governments;  the  military  men,  who  want  an 
outlet  for  their  pent-up  energy — this  party 
can  at  present  create  and  keep  up  war  panics 


106         The  Younger  Generation 

with  impunity.  This  party  always  mono- 
polises the  name  of  the  "nation,"  whereas  it 
is  actually  only  a  small  section  of  the  people, 
which  continually  nullifies  the  efforts  of  the 
majority.  Irresponsible  rulers,  unscrupulous 
capitalists,  priests  without  spirit  and  diplo- 
matists without  sense,  combined  with  the 
"yellow"  Press  which  lacks  at  the  same  time 
responsibility,  conscience,  spirit,  and  sense, 
are  a  perpetual  menace  to  peace  in  every 
country. 

We  must  teach  our  children  that  "armed 
peace"  exhausts  the  intellectual  and  material 
strength  of  nations — that  is,  their  foremost 
powers  of  defence — just  as  surely  as,  though 
more  slowly  than,  war;  that  the  olive-branch 
of  peace,  held  in  the  "mailed  fist,"  does  not 
afford  that  "security  from  attack"  which  is 
alleged  to  be  the  object  of  armaments.  For, 
if  A  increases  the  number  of  his  warships  from 
ten  to  twenty,  because  B  has  increased  his  to 
the  same  extent,  then  B  brings  his  up  to  thirty, 
and  so  the  rivalry  goes  on,  without  altering 
the  original  situation  at  all.  The  small  na- 
tions gain  no  increased  security,  but  are 
impoverished  and  their  countries  depopulated 
by  emigration.  As  all  are  arming  to  the  full 
extent  of  their  power,  not  only  does  the  defen- 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism     107 

sive  position  remain  the  same,  but  the  danger 
of  war  is  increased  by  the  rivalry  that  creates 
tension,  breeds  distrust,  and  stirs  up  hatred. 
And  when  things  have  gone  so  far,  the  wind 
called  "popular  opinion,"  blowing  now  from 
the  conservative,  now  from  the  liberal  quarter, 
soon  fans  into  flame  the  heat  engendered  by 
the  friction  between  two  national  interests. 

We  must  teach  our  children  that  in  our  time 
lasting  peace,  especially  for  the  small  nations, 
cannot  be  secured  by  armed  force ;  nor  by  such 
alliances  as  are  never  directed  towards  the 
preservation  of  peace,  but  always  against  some 
common  enemy;  nor  even  by  treaties  of 
arbitration.  Peace  is  best  assured  by  the 
conscious  opposition  which  warlike  agitation 
encounters  in  the  majority  of  the  people. 
Every  thoughtful  person  now  knows  that 
wars  are  neither  determined  by  circumstances 
over  which  men  have  no  control,  nor  brought 
about  in  pursuance  of  a  divine  scheme,  but 
that  they  are  determined  by  circumstances 
which  men  are  able  to  transform  in  proportion 
as  they  themselves  acquire  a  clearer  judgment, 
a  higher  reason,  a  nobler  will,  and  a  more 
delicate  sensibility.  In  proportion  as  the  con- 
sciousness grows  in  a  people  that  the  peri- 
odical slaughter  of  the  most  vigorous  among 


io8         The  Younger  Generation 

the  male  population  of  two  nations  is  nothing 
but  criminal  madness,  will  a  place  be  prepared 
in  the  brains  of  that  people  for  the  opposite, 
the  rational  idea.  And  this  idea  is  the  uni- 
versal organisation,  by  means  of  which  the 
new  and  nobler  feeling  of  community — the 
community  of  the  nations — and  the  wider 
spirit  of  citizenship — citizenship  of  the  world- 
will  acquire  a  freedom  of  movement,  a  strength, 
and  an  extension,  which  they  could  never 
attain  in  the  present  state  of  international 
anarchy,  in  which  each  nation  desires  the 
supremacy,  continuance,  and  expansion  of  its 
own  country  at  the  expense  of  and  in  opposi- 
tion to  other  countries.  From  this  it  follows 
that  feelings,  thoughts,  actions,  and  laws  are 
adjusted  to  national  enmity  as  a  permanent 
state  and  to  sacrifices  in  armaments  as  the 
condition  of  safeguarding  the  integrity  and 
independence  of  the  individual  State. 

Through  socialism  the  mental  attitude  of 
large  numbers  of  people  towards  militarism 
has  begun  to  undergo  a  change  and  pacifism 
now  finds  its  most  numerous  supporters  in 
organised  labour.  The  ' '  Pan-Idealism, ' '  which 
the  Austrian  thinker  Holzapfel  reduced  to  a 
system,  influences  an  increasing  number  of 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism    109 

those  minds  which  are  at  all  capable  of  ideal- 
ism. That  his  book  was  read  by  Russian 
soldiers  round  the  camp-fires  of  Manchuria 
is  one  of  the  many  significant  features  of  a 
recent  great  outbreak  of  human  slaughter. 
This  idealism  ought  to  impel  all  women,  not 
only  those  socialistically  disposed,  to  attach 
themselves  to  the  antimilitarist  propaganda 
and  to  bring  up  their  children  in  its  spirit. 

The  most  effectual  means  of  stimulating 
children  and  young  people  in  the  cause  of 
peace  is  to  make  them  familiar  with  those  facts 
which  prove  that  the  nations,  now  so  closely 
connected  in  their  interests  and  so  dependent 
on  one  another,  require  a  greater  security  than 
that  afforded  by  armaments ;  a  security  which 
can  only  be  achieved  through  the  mutual 
protection  provided  by  new  international 
organisations  for  the  regulation  of  labour  and 
legal  relations. 

To  encourage  the  young,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  refuse  military  service,  is  to  encourage 
them  to  a  breach  of  the  law  which  will  only 
result  in  a  loss  of  power  to  the  individual  and — 
in  present  circumstances — a  danger  to  the 
people.  For  any  such  international  action  on 
the  part  of  the  young  would  only  result  in  the 
reintroduction  of  mercenary  armies. 


no         The  Younger  Generation 

Only  those  young  men  who  have  duly 
performed  their  military  duties  can  possess 
the  authority  to  urge  the  refusal  of  military 
service  in  those  cases  where  their  own  country 
begins  or  seeks  to  provoke  a  war.  This  refusal 
of  service  in  certain  cases  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  the  refusal  of  all  military  service 
on  principle.  By  combating  the  warlike  spirit 
the  young  can  unquestionably  contribute  to 
diminish  the  danger  of  war.  And  in  twenty- 
five  years'  time,  when  these  young  men  have 
acquired  the  direction  of  political  affairs, 
Europe  might  take  up  the  problem  of  dis- 
armament with  some  prospect  of  success. 

This  kind  of  antimilitarism  appears  to  me 
at  present  the  only  one  which  meets  the  claims 
both  of  the  moment  and  of  the  future;  the 
only  one  in  which  the  duty  of  the  young  to 
protect  their  own  country's  heritage  of  culture 
and  their  duty  to  assist  in  the  elevation  of 
the  culture  of  mankind  can  simultaneously  be 
fulfilled. 

The  antimilitarist  propaganda  must  be 
carried  on  by  the  women  of  every  nation. 
Let  the  men  see  to  the  needs  of  actual  defence. 
But  let  the  women,  who  in  their  children  bear 
the  future  on  their  bosoms,  work  with  all 
their  educative  power  to  bring  in  the  time 


Youth,  Woman,  and  Antimilitarism    in 

when  the  state  of  war  between  nations  shall 
give  place  to  that  of  mutual  help  and  inter- 
national justice.  Let  them,  from  home  to 
home,  from  district  to  district,  from  land  to 
land,  spread  the  enlightenment,  change  the 
ideas,  intensify  the  feelings,  and  stir  up  the 
resistance  by  means  of  which  the  evolution  of 
humanity  from  the  state  of  war  to  that  of 
peace  will  finally  be  accomplished.  In  this 
way  women  are  fulfilling  a  mission  just  as 
important  as  that  of  giving  birth  to  the  new 
generation;  the  mission,  namely,  of  bringing 
about  the  rebirth  of  humanity. 


V 


'CLASS  BADGES" 


"CLASS  BADGES" 


ONE  spring  day  I  was  walking  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Stockholm  with  a  friend  who 
was  in  constant  fear  of  murderers.  The  sight 
of  a  couple  of  working-men  terrified  her  even  at 
a  distance,  until  I  pointed  out  to  her  that  they 
were  picking  anemones!  For  she  saw  at 
once  that  the  state  of  mind,  which  induced  the 
men  to  make  a  laborious  search  for  the  first 
anemones,  could  not  very  well  be  combined 
with  evil  designs  on  our  lives.  The  anemones 
on  that  occasion  served  as  a  "class  badge," 
by  conclusively  proving  that  those  workmen 
could  not  belong  to  the  category  of  hooligans ! 

And  consciously  or  unconsciously  we  draw 
similar  conclusions — from  the  external  to  the 
internal — every  time  we  assume  any  mark 
of  class  to  be  either  an  excluding  wall  or  a 
connecting  bridge  between  ourselves  and 
some  group  of  our  fellow -men. 

The  talent  of  caricaturists  often  shows  itself 

"5 


ii6         The  Younger  Generation 

in  this  very  faculty  of  catching  and  emphasis- 
ing class  badges.  In  a  hundred  years'  time 
our  comic  papers  will  be  indispensable  to 
anyone  who  wants  to  study  certain  human 
types,  then  presumably  extinct ;  just  as  skele- 
tons are  indispensable  for  the  reconstruction 
of  extinct  animal  species. 

But  new  caricaturists  will  then  find  new 
class  badges  in  new  human  types.  For  the 
socialists  will  hardly  turn  out  to  be  true  pro- 
phets in  declaring  that  all  class  distinctions 
will  disappear  as  soon  as  the  class  war  has 
been  carried  to  a  victorious  close.  The  stamp 
of  a  person's  occupation  will  never  entirely 
disappear.  And  this  is  a  fortunate  thing,  as 
the  variety  of  life  is  a  source  of  gladness. 
Indeed,  inner  characteristics  will  then  be 
perhaps  more  pronounced  than  now.  Uni- 
formity will  only  appear  in  a  number  of 
external  things,  which  at  present  divide 
the  upper  from  the  lower  class. 

Cleanliness,  for  instance,  which  the  working- 
man  now  frequently  regards  as  "upper  class 
arrogance,"  will  doubtless  then  be  public 
property — nay,  water  and  brushes  of  all  sorts 
will  be  a  necessity  of  life.  But  should  this 
not  be  the  case,  then  no  victories  of  socialism 
will  be  able  to  efface  the  class  distinction 


" Class  Badges"  117 

between  those  who  take  a  bath  and  those  who 
do  not.  For  the  nose  is  undoubtedly  our 
most  "class-conscious"  organ.  And  this 
organ  demands  that  Europe  shall  keep 
pace  with  America,  where  working-clothes 
are  often  left  at  the  workshop  and  the  traces 
of  labour  are  removed  in  the  bathroom  of 
the  factory.  Increasing  cleanliness  and  ap- 
propriateness— in  other  words,  increasing 
good  taste — will  quite  certainly  tend  to 
make  the  workman,  instead  of,  as  now,  try- 
ing to  conceal  his  occupation,  accentuate  it 
in  such  a  way  that  every  trade,  for  which  a 
special  dress  is  appropriate,  will  provide  itself 
with  a  "working-uniform."  The  peasant 
girl,  for  instance,  is  nowadays  far  from  looking 
"smart"  when  she  works  in  the  fields  in 
shabby  town  finery,  side  by  side  with  another 
girl  in  a  cotton  dress  which  is  as  appropriate  as 
it  is  becoming.  And  our  working-men,  far 
from  presenting  a  genteel  appearance  in  their 
working-clothes,  which  are  often  cast-off 
"gentleman's  clothes,"  look  vulgar  compared 
with  the  French  workman  in  his  blue  blouse; 
while  the  latter  at  his  cafe  is  treated  by  every- 
one as  a  gentleman — so  long  as  he  himself 
behaves  as  one. 

Another  badge  of  class  is  the  lack  of  a  re- 


n8         The  Younger  Generation 

fined  sense  for  nature.  Of  course  working- 
men  are  not  the  only  ones  who  mark  their 
visits  to  spots  of  natural  beauty  with  greasy 
paper  and  broken  bottles,  with  scattered 
orange-peel  and  snapped-off  branches,  with 
bawling  and  rowdiness;  but  they  are  never- 
theless the  worst  offenders.  So  long  as  the 
rabble — whether  of  the  lower  or  the  upper 
class — takes  its  bottles  and  its  noise  into 
nature's  solitudes,  no  victories  of  socialism 
will  be  able  to  efface  the  class  distinction 
between  the  masses  and  the  refined  minority 
who  desire  to  enjoy  the  'beauties  of  scenery 
in  meditative  calm. 

We  often  hear  it  said  that  the  Swedes  are 
more  uncivilised  than  other  people  as  regards 
acts  of  vandalism  committed  against  nature 
or  works  of  art. 

My  observations  abroad,  however,  have 
not  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  such  vul- 
garities are  more  rampant  in  Sweden  than  in 
other  countries.  In  Paris,  for  instance,  several 
statues  in  public  places  were  recently  damaged ; 
that  this  was  the  work  of  young  "Royalists" 
belonging  to  the  highest  society,  and  that  it 
was  due  to  political  motives,  does  not  improve 
the  matter.  In  Rome  I  have  seen  names 
scribbled  everywhere,  from  the  dome  of 


"Class  Badges"  119 

St.  Peter's  to  the  catacombs.  My  first  im- 
pression of  a  Greek  temple — in  Sicily — was 
disturbed  by  a  boy's  school  of  the  higher  class, 
the  members  of  which  concluded  a  day's 
outing  by  smashing  their  empty  lemonade 
bottles  against  the  rocks.  The  Swedes  can 
hardly  come  up  to  the  Germans  in  their  power 
of  spoiling  a  beautiful  scene  with  blatant  up- 
roar. And  a  more  awful  rabble  than  that  of 
London,  on  such  occasions  as  Maf eking  Night, 
I  have  never  seen. 

With  every  people  certain  sorts  of  roughness 
are  due  to  religious,  patriotic,  or  other  fanatic- 
ism. But  these,  together  with  all  other  forms 
of  brutality,  find  their  most  repulsive  expres- 
sion— above  all,  brawling — under  the  influence 
of  drink.  The  campaign  against  alcohol  and 
a  ruthless  confinement  of  all  intoxicated  per- 
sons— no  matter  to  what  class  they  belong — • 
who  show  themselves  in  streets  and  public 
places — these  are  the  first  and  most  im- 
portant means  of  suppressing  outbreaks  of 
rowdiness. 

Intoxication  is  still  the  decisive  "class 
badge,"  though  not  between  "upper"  and 
"lower"  class,  but  between  men  who  are 
masters  of  themselves  and  those  who  are 
their  own  slaves — a  class  distinction  which 


120         The  Younger  Generation 

unfortunately  will  hold  its  ground  longer 
than  any  other. 

Promiscuous  spitting,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  now  only  a  rude  and  unhygienic  habit  of 
the  uneducated.  Anyone  who  has  seen  how 
widespread  this  bad  habit  is  in  Italy,  the  very 
home  of  beauty,  will  admit  that  in  this  respect 
the  Northern  peoples  show  a  comparative 
refinement.  But  a  new  pernicious  practice — 
not  confined  to  any  class — is  that  of  incon- 
siderately smoking  in  people's  faces ;  of  poison- 
ing public  places  with  tobacco  fumes,  and  even 
smoking  where  it  is  forbidden,  in  defiance  of 
regulations.  I  have  noticed  this  mark  of  boor- 
ishness  especially  among  "class-conscious" 
working-men,  who,  however,  should  be  the 
last  to  adopt  it,  since  they  hope  for  a  future 
society  in  which  the  rights  of  all  will  be  pro- 
tected by  the  solidarity  of  all  in  the  mainten- 
ance of  lawful  order. 

People  returning  from  abroad  often  express 
the  opinion  that  their  own  countrymen  use 
worse  language  than  other  nations.  They 
are  apt  to  forget  that  in  foreign  countries 
their  knowledge  of  the  vocabulary  is  often  de- 
fective. How  many  foreigners  understand,  for 
instance,  that  the  words  which  disappointed 
Italian  beggars  call  after  one — "May  you  be 


4 'Class  Badges"  121 

murdered!" — are  one  of  the  worst  oaths  in 
the  Italian  language?  It  cannot  be  denied, 
however,  that  swearing  is  a  "class  badge"; 
but  how  is  a  country  lad  to  know  any  better, 
when  corporals,  and  indeed  officers  of  the 
army,  frequently  employ  oaths  as  a  stimulus? 

Many  more  marks  of  class  might  be  cited, 
the  nature  of  which  may  be  summed  up  by 
saying  that  the  uncultivated  person  grasps 
at  the  shadow  and  lets  the  substance  go, 
chooses  the  frivolities,  and  overlooks  the  real 
values.  But  this  mark  of  vulgarity  also  is  to 
be  found  both  in  the  upper  and  in  the  lower 
class.  The  rich  merchant's  wife  with  her 
bright  and  showy  drawing-room,  but  dark  and 
cramped  nursery,  shows  her  want  of  culture 
just  as  plainly  as  the  workman's  wife,  who 
makes  the  family  eat  and  sleep  in  the  kitchen, 
in  order  that  she  may  have  a  "genteelly" 
bedecked  room  to  receive  visitors  in! 

And  this  very  fact  that  there  is  a  vulgar 
herd  among  the  rich,  as  well  as  among  the 
poor,  ought  to  convince  the  socialists  that  the 
mark  of  class  lies  too  deep  to  be  reached  by 
external  class  distinctions  and  class  codes; 
that  base  feelings  and  vulgar  inclinations  form 
the  real  badge  of  the  lower  class,  and  that 


122         The  Younger  Generation 

this  can  only  be  got  rid  of  from  within.  This 
counteraction  from  within  will  have  to  con- 
tinue long  after  the  broad  social  justice,  for 
which  we  are  now  righting,  has  been  won,  and 
the  outward  disparities,  against  which  we  are 
now  fighting,  have  disappeared.  For  even 
if  we  obtain  for  every  member  of  society  the 
opportunities  of  development,  the  conditions 
of  labour,  the  enhancement  of  life,  that  we 
now  dream  of,  there  will  always  exist  greater 
and  smaller  capacities  for  mental  culture. 
And  therefore  we  shall  no  doubt  find  again 
in  the  society  of  the  future — although  on  a 
higher  plane — a  small  number  of  thoroughly 
cultured  people,  beside  a  majority  of  average 
culture  and  an  uncultured  minority.  No  one 
will  then  lack  time  and  opportunity  for 
developing  what  is  in  him.  But  dare  we 
suppose  that — for  the  next  thousand  years, 
at  least — all  will  make  use  of  these  chances? 

For  we  see  now,  for  instance,  that  young 
"class-conscious"  socialists  too  often  resemble 
those  young  members  of  the  upper  class  who 
vulgarise  their  existence  in  restaurants  and 
music-halls,  who  squander  their  means  and 
their  health  with  alcohol  and  tobacco.  We 
see,  too,  how  the  "class-conscious"  working- 
man  shows  his  self-esteem  in  the  same  "stuck- 


"Class  Badges"  123 

up"  stiffness  towards  the  "upper  class"  that 
the  snobs  of  the  latter  show  towards  all  those 
socially  beneath  them.  We  see,  again,  how 
the  "class-conscious"  working-man  imagines 
himself  to  be  playing  the  gentleman  by  lolling 
in  cabs  and  adopting  other  and  worse  upper- 
class  manners.  When  will  the  working-man 
see  that  in  all  this  he  is  just  exposing  his  lack 
of  real  refinement;  that  the  "class  badge"  of 
boorishness  is  never  so  conspicuous  as  in  this 
aping? 

And  we  see,  too,  that  working-men,  who 
have  every  reason  to  hate  the  upper-class 
badge  of  coarseness — heartless  oppression  of 
the  workers — and  have  every  reason  to  hate 
international  wars,  carry  on  their  social  war 
with  oppression  and  cruelty.  As,  for  instance, 
when  small  employers  are  reduced  to  ruin 
because  they  will  not  have  incompetent  or 
drunken  workmen  forced  upon  them;  when 
working-men  use  personal  violence  for  dis- 
seminating their  opinions.  But  I  will 
break  off,  for  it  is  too  painful  to  me  to  go  on 
adducing  evidence  of  the  fact  that  a  number 
of  the  workers  have  used  the  weapon  of 
violence,  while  at  the  same  time  condemning 
war. 

And  we  see  working-men,  who  have  every 


124         The  Younger  Generation 

reason  to  hate  intolerance  when  shown  to  the 
doctrines  of  socialism,  themselves  exhibiting 
this  "class  badge." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  already  find  many 
manual  labourers  showing,  in  the  street  and 
in  the  museum,  on  country  excursions  and  in 
the  lecture  hall,  at  party  meetings  and  at  their 
work,  that  outward  and  inward  refinement 
which  is  derived,  not  only  from  justifiable 
self-esteem,  but  also  from  consideration  for 
others.  As  regards  cleanliness  and  sobriety, 
speech  and  behaviour,  regard  for  the  rights 
of  others,  inward  delicacy  and  outward  con- 
sideration, these  working-men  are  a  long  way 
above  a  great  many  drunkards  and  rowdies 
of  the  "upper  class." 

The  deepest-lying  cause  of  coarseness, 
among  ourselves  as  in  other  countries,  is  the 
fact  that  the  culture  of  the  young — in  spite 
of  all  the  fine  things  that  are  said  about  it — is 
not  the  end  aimed  at  in  the  school  curriculum, 
and  that  the  behaviour  resulting  from  com- 
pulsory measures  of  school  discipline  does  not 
imply  any  acquisition  of  self-discipline  act- 
ing from  within.  Thus,  when  school-days  are 
over,  coarseness  returns. 

To  this  must  be  added  the  class  division, 
already  strongly  marked  by  the  different 


"Class  Badges"  125 

types  of  school,  which  excludes  children  of 
working-class  homes  from  the  refined  com- 
panionship of  children  of  cultured  homes,  and 
deprives  grown-up  people  of  all  classes  of  the 
mutual  education  that  manual  workers  and 
brain  workers  might  give  one  another.  This 
mutual  education  is,  as  Almqvist  rightly 
pointed  out,  the  fundamental  condition  for 
forming  the  various  classes  of  a  people  into 
one  nation. 

A  thing  that  is  indirectly  to  blame  for  the 
coarseness  of  the  children  of  the  people  is  the 
opinion  still  prevailing  in  many  quarters  that 
grinding  at  catechism  is  the  proper  means  of 
educating  the  children  of  primary  schools. 
For  owing  to  this  the  real  intellectual  cultiva- 
tion, which  might  commence  even  in  the 
primary  school,  has  often  to  be  sacrificed  to  a 
religious  instruction  that  is  fatal  to  religious 
feeling  itself. 

No  "class  badge"  is  more  profoundly 
marked  than  the  difference  in  the  attention 
and  cultivation  that  children  receive.  And 
the  only  means  of  counteracting  coarseness  on 
a  large  scale — and  at  the  same  time  eradicating 
class  divisions — would  be  a  common  school 
for  all  the  children  of  the  country  until  reach- 
ing the  age  of,  say,  fifteen.  But  this  school 


126         The  Younger  Generation 

would  have  to  be  entirely  freed  both  from  clerical 
authority  and  from  the  system  of  compulsory 
examinations.  This  would  be  accompanied 
by  the  disappearance  of  the  unfortunate  differ- 
ence in  cultivation  between  teachers  in  schools 
under  public  authority  and  other  teachers. 
We  should  have  only  one  type  of  school- 
masters and  mistresses.  These  ought  to  be 
trained  by  the  very  best  methods  to  become 
gardeners  of  young  human  minds;  gardeners 
who  would  be  allowed  the  leisure  and  the  right 
to  devote  themselves  wholly  to  the  cultivation 
of  those  minds,  and  not  to  their  preparation 
either  for  confirmation  or  for  any  kind  of 
examination. 

But  it  looks  as  though  we  should  have  to 
wait  a  long  time  for  such  schools  for  the  eradi- 
cation of  class  distinctions!  The  young  Social 
Democrats  must  therefore  continue  the  work 
of  self -education  that  they  have  so  well  begun, 
and  continue  it  above  all  within  their  own 
class,  at  their  own  meetings,  in  their  own 
lectures. 

For,  let  us  admit  it,  many  of  the  character- 
istics of  a  cultured  class  are  still  lacking. 
And  unfortunately  we  find  false  prophets 
who  preach  that  the  class  struggle  can  best 
be  carried  on  without  the  refinement  which 


" Class  Badges"  127 

is  one  of  those  characteristics.  But  all  we 
who  in  the  great  cause  of  socialism  love  the 
brighter  future  that  we  are  trying  to  conjure 
up  out  of  the  present — we  know  that  this 
great  cause  has  no  worse  enemies  than  these 
very  preachers  of  ruthlessness,  of  barbarity, 
as  necessary  means  of  warfare. 

There  is  no  symbol  that  socialism  ought  now 
to  take  to  heart  more  earnestly  than  the  pro- 
found fable  of  the  giant  who  could  only  be 
slain  with  his  own  sword.  On  the  other  hand, 
socialism  will  become  invincible  on  the  day 
when  it  takes  as  its  emblem  the  arch- 
angel Michael,  who  bears  in  one  hand  a 
flaming  sword,  but  in  the  other  the  scales 
of  justice. 


VI 

THE  CHILDREN'S  CHARTER 


129 


VI 

THE  CHILDREN'S  CHARTER' 

A  YOUNG  Italian  artist  sent  me  not  long 
**  ago  a  drawing,  representing  a  naked, 
new-born  babe  being  lifted  out  of  dark  waters 
by  a  pair  of  woman's  arms  like  flower-stalks, 
while  the  towers  and  smoking  factory  chim- 
neys of  a  great  city  loom  in  the  murky 
background. 

We  may  venture  to  interpret  the  artist's 
idea  in  this  way:  as  the  stalk  of  the  water- 
lily  raises  its  white  flower  towards  the  sun, 
so  must  the  flower  of  our  race,  the  child,  be 
raised  by  strong  and  tender  hands  towards 
the  light  and  air,  which  the  great  city  and  its 
great  industry  are  now  rendering  less  and  less 
accessible. 

Of  the  society  of  the  future  I  know  this  with 
absolute  certainty: 

1  Written  for  "  Children's  Day,"  an  annual  event  in  Scandi- 
navia, when  street  collections,  entertainments,  etc.,  are  held  for 
philanthropic  objects. — TR. 


132         The  Younger  Generation 

The  first  and  most  important  article  of  its 
code  will  be  that  of  the  Rights  of  the  Child. 

This  article  will  establish: 

The  right  of  all  children  to  healthy  parents, 
reared  for  the  calling  of  parentage. 

The  right  of  all  children  to  protection  for 
both  soul  and  body  against  blows  and  drudg- 
ery, against  hunger  and  dirt. 

The  right  of  all  children  to  physical  and 
mental  development  during  their  whole  period 
of  growth,  through  full  participation  in  a 
complete  tutelary  care  in  health  and  sickness, 
in  an  assimilation,  free  from  examinations, 
of  nature  and  culture,  and  in  a  professional 
training  according  to  ability,  not  according 
to  class. 

The  right  of  all  children  to  disinheritance ; 
in  other  words,  their  being  placed  in  the 
beneficent  necessity  of  making  full  use  of 
their  completely  developed  powers. 

But  what  chance  is  there  of  this  Children's 
Charter  being  drawn  up — to  say  nothing  of  its 
being  followed — before  grown-up  people  really 
begin  to  become  as  children;  in  other  words, 
soulful  instead  of  greedy  for  riches?  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  legislation  for  the  full 
human  rights  of  the  child  cannot  come  about 
until  those  transformations  have  taken  place 


The  Children's  Charter  133 

which  the  present-day  "guardians  of  society" 
term  "revolutionary." 

The  future  will  judge  our  present  plane  of 
culture  as  we  now  judge  that  of  past  ages, 
when  new-born  babes  were  exposed  and  the 
young  children  of  conquered  cities  were 
dashed  against  the  walls. 

Nay,  the  judgment  upon  our  time  will  be 
even  more  severe.  For  the  people  of  anti- 
quity knew  not  what  they  did,  when  they 
caused  the  blood  of  children  to  flow  like  water. 
But  our  age  allows  millions  of  children  to  be 
worn  out,  starved,  maltreated,  neglected,  to 
be  tortured  at  school,  and  to  become  degen- 
erate and  criminal,  and  yet  it  knows  the  con- 
sequences— to  the  race  and  to  the  community 
— that  all  this  involves.  And  why?  Because 
we  are  not  yet  willing  to  reckon  in  life-values 
instead  of  in  gold-values. 

One  "  Children's  Day "  in  the  year  is 
like  a  cup  of  water  among  an  army  of  the 
thirsty. 

Every  day  of  the  year  ought  to  belong 
first  and  foremost  to  the  children,  so  that 
the  years  of  childhood  might  be  lived  in 
the  conditions  indispensable  to  the  rearing 
\  of  healthy  strong,  happy,  and  good  human 
beings. 


\ 


134        The  Younger  Generation 

That  State  which  is  the  first  to  translate 
this  demand  into  action  will  be  foremost  in 
the  civilisation  of  the  future,  the  "pedagogic 
province"  desired  by  Goethe. 


VII 

RECREATIVE  CULTURE 


135 


VII 

RECREATIVE   CULTURE 


'TD  the  nation  as  a  whole  recreative  culture 
•*•  is  needful.  But  above  all  is  it  important 
to  the  hosts  who  have  inscribed  on  their  banners 
the  just  demand  for  eight  hours'  rest  side  by 
side  with  that  for  eight  hours'  work  and  eight 
hours'  sleep.  For,  when  this  time  of  rest  has 
been  won,  it  will  be  employed  not  only  in 
family  life  or  in  affairs  of  social  politics,  but 
also  in  self -education  and  in  enjoyment.  And 
the  question  will  then  be  of  even  greater 
importance  than  now,  how  this  need  of  enjoy- 
ment is  satisfied.  That  enjoyment  should  be 
allotted  an  ample  share  of  leisure  time  is  desir- 
able, not  only  for  the  health  and  happiness  of 
the  individual,  but  also  for  the  value  of  his 
work.  Science  has  proved  the  inanity  of  the 
talk  we  still  hear  about  "change  of  work" 
being  the  best  form  of  rest,  and  confirmed  the 
truth  of  the  rhyme: 

137 


138         The  Younger  Generation 

Much  work  and  no  joy 
Make  Jack  a  dull  boy. 


But  enjoyment  may  also  make  a  man  dull 
and  indifferent.  Not  merely  those  pleasures 
which,  with  a  growing  consensus  of  opinion, 
are  called  worthless,  but  even  those  which 
are  regarded  as  innocent,  are  harmful  if  prac- 
tised without  restraint.  But  they  are  harm- 
ful above  all  if  they  are  such  as  involve 
neither  mental  nor  physical  renewal,  which  is 
just  what  is  implied  in  the  admirably  signific- 
ant word  recreation. 

Only  pleasures  productive  in  this  respect 
are,  in  the  profoundest  meaning  of  the  word, 
noble  pleasures. 

Recreative  culture  implies  in  the  first  place 
cultivation  of  the  faculty  of  distinguishing  be- 
tween the  different  kinds  of  pleasure,  and,  in 
the  next  place,  the  will  to  choose  the  produc- 
tive and  reject  the  unproductive  and  harm- 
ful. A  Danish  author,  now  dead,  has  well 
illustrated  the  difference  between  productive 
and  unproductive  mental  conditions  generally 
by  a  simile  taken  from  his  profession,  that  of 
an  engineer.  He  compares  intellectual  life 
with  that  of  a  machine,  to  which  power  in 
some  form  is  conducted;  a  power  which  in- 


Recreative  Culture  139 

cessantly  overcomes  resistance  and  performs 
work,  provided  that  the  supply  of  power  is 
kept  up.  But  if  force  is  expended  without  a 
constant  fresh  supply,  or  if,  conversely,  the 
supply  is  maintained  without  force  being  ex- 
pended, the  same  effects  ensue  in  intellectual 
life  as  in  the  machine.  Only  when  the  supply 
and  expenditure  of  power  are  in  the  right 
proportion  is  intellectual  life  free,  mobile,  re- 
ceptive, and  productive.  But  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  right  proportion  is  disturbed — either 
by  insufficient  supply  or  insufficient  expendi- 
ture of  force — intellectual  life  becomes  empty 
or  torpid ;  in  one  case  it  moves  in  an  unproduc- 
tive circle,  in  the  other  it  is  obstructed  and 
stationary. 

Pleasure  may  be  of  such  a  kind  as  to  bring 
new  strength  to  the  body  or  the  mind  or  both. 
But  far  oftener  it  exhausts  or  merely  occupies 
one,  without  becoming  a  motive  power  in  any 
direction.  We  should  not  heat  a  boiler  with 
feathers  or  make  bread  of  sawdust  if  we  wanted 
motive  power  or  nutriment,  and  just  as  little 
can  we  expect  power  and  nourishment  from 
nine  tenths  of  the  so-called  "diversions"  and 
"pastimes"  of  the  present  day.  These  words 
are  appropriate,  for  while  pleasures  that  have 


140         The  Younger  Generation 

a  meaning  collect  the  intellectual  powers, 
empty  pleasures  divert  them  in  all  directions. 
And  while  noble  pleasure  makes  every  moment 
golden,  time  is  wasted  like  water  when  the 
object  is  to  "pass"  it. 

Whether  pleasure  be  obtained  from  nature 
or  art,  from  the  theatre  or  from  music,  from 
intercourse  with  books  or  with  men  and  women, 
from  sports  or  games,  from  dancing  or  playing, 
noble  pleasure  is  to  be  distinguished  from 
ignoble  both  by  its  effect  at  the  moment  and 
by  its  after-effect.  The  former  will  have 
enhanced  the  powers  of  body  and  mind,  if  the 
bounds  of  moderation  have  not  been  exceeded. 
Ignoble  pleasure,  though  it  may  not  have  been 
immoderately  indulged  in,  leaves  behind  dul- 
ness,  loathing,  weariness,  and  emptiness,  even 
in  those  cases  where  its  evil  effects  have  not 
reached  the  feelings  and  the  will.  Most  signi- 
ficant in  this  respect  is  intoxication.  Many 
people  defend  this  as  ''productive,"  since  in 
its  earlier  phase  it  liberates  certain  natures 
from  heaviness,  shyness,  and  self-criticism; 
just  as  it  increases  the  receptivity  of  the  senses, 
promotes  the  wit,  and  fires  the  inspiration. 
But  its  effects  in  the  later  phases,  as  also  its 
after-effects,  prove  the  fallacy  of  this  elevation. 
A  lasting  enhancement  of  life — that  is,  one 


Recreative  Culture  141 

that  brings  growth  to  the  mind  and  health  to 
the  body — is  only  to  be  obtained  from  plea- 
sures which  make  a  man  happy  and  good,  as 
a  child  is  happy  and  good,  in  the  present 
moment;  or  more  mature  in  thought,  feeling, 
and  will;  or  refreshed  and  ready  to  wrestle 
anew  with  the  tasks  of  life.  If  pleasure  has 
had  none  of  these  effects,  it  has  been  bad,  or 
at  any  rate  empty. 

In  every  class  the  majority  allows  itself 
empty  pleasures.  But  nowhere  else  is  this  so 
fraught  with  danger  as  in  the  working-class. 
For  although  of  course  it  is  equally  disastrous 
to  every  individual  in  every  class  to  suffer 
spiritual  injury  through  base  pleasures,  it  is 
far  more  disastrous  to  the  whole  community 
and  to  its  future  if  the  fourth  estate — in  whose 
hands  lie  the  problems  of  the  immediate 
future — suffers  such  injury.  The  working- 
class  requires  to  use  every  means,  even  that 
of  pleasure,  for  strengthening  and  increasing 
its  powers  for  their  tasks.  It  is  therefore  a 
question  of  supreme  importance  whether  the 
scanty  leisure  working-men  now  enjoy,  also 
the  increased  spare  time  they  hope  to  gain,  is 
wasted  in  worthless  amusements  or  is  em- 
ployed in  true  recreation,  in  renewal  of  physical 
and  mental  powers. 


142         The  Younger  Generation 

Working-men — like  most  other  people — 
seldom  think  about  the  pleasures  they  allow 
themselves,  so  long  as  these  pleasures  are  not 
downright  vicious  or  too  expensive.  The  man 
who  has  a  shilling  to  spend  on  a  pleasure  that 
is  considered  innocent  throws  down  his  coin 
without  stopping  to  think  whether  he  will  get 
in  return  a  pleasure  that  is  full  of  renovating 
force,  or  one  that  is  as  sterile  as  the  sand. 

There  is  no  surer  proof  of  a  person's  culture 
than  his  choice  of  pleasures.  Indeed,  we  find 
out  more  about  a  person's  intellectual  quality 
by  watching  him  at  play  than  we  should  by 
observing  him  at  work.  Many  a  man  can  do 
a  good  day's  work,  whether  mental  or  physical, 
and  yet  disclose  his  inward  coarseness  in  his 
amusements. 

The  latter  set  their  stamp  even  upon  the 
outward  man.  Observe,  for  instance,  two 
working-men  playing  chess  and  two  others 
sitting  with  their  beer-mugs  and  handling  a 
dirty  pack  of  cards.  The  faces  of  the  former 
show  shrewdness  and  intelligence,  those  of  the 
latter  coarseness  or  lassitude.  Or  look  at  the 
educated  man  who  enjoys  himself  in  society 
without  the  stimulus  of  alcohol,  and  at  him 
who  owes  his  festive  mood  to  an  excess  of  this 
stimulus.  One  needs  no  psychology,  but  only 


Recreative  Culture  143 

a  pair  of  seeing  eyes,  to  know  more  about  these 
souls  than  they  themselves  think  they  are 
revealing. 

Most  people — including  both  the  socialist 
and  the  pillar  of  existing  society — foolishly 
overlook  the  vital  necessities  of  the  soul. 
What  the  body  requires  as  a  minimum  for 
existence  is  beginning  to  be  known.  But  that 
the  soul  may  also  descend  below  its  minimum 
requirements  is  not  yet  even  suspected.  People 
allow  themselves  domestic  habits,  social  cus- 
toms, and  public  amusements  which  yield  no 
profit  in  the  way  of  increased  mental  elasticity, 
or  richer  emotions,  or  a  happier  disposition,  or 
strengthened  will-power,  or  greater  physical 
health.  They  do  not  ask  themselves  whether 
their  mode  of  life  gives  them  an  ever  higher 
view  of  life  and  an  ever  deeper  sense  of  beauty. 
They  ask  nothing  else  of  their  pleasures  but 
amusement.  If  they  have  been  able  to  laugh 
and  make  a  noise — or  tipple  and  stupefy 
themselves — then  they  have  "enjoyed"  them- 
selves; they  have  "passed  the  time, "  and  they 
feel  no  sense  of  responsibility  towards  their 
souls.  They  would  be  very  much  annoyed 
with  themselves  if  they  chanced  to  drop  their 
money  into  the  sea.  But  they  do  not  perceive 
that  in  such  pleasures — which  have  done 


144         The  Younger  Generation 

nothing  to  ennoble  thought  and  feeling,  have 
strengthened  neither  the  muscles  nor  the  will, 
have  yielded  neither  mental  nor  physical 
culture  in  any  form — they  have  not  dropped 
but  voluntarily  thrown  their  money  into  the 
sea. 


II 


Those  pleasures  rank  highest  in  cultural 
value,  in  which  one  takes  an  active  part  one's 
self,  if  not  at  first,  then  at  second  hand;  since 
one's  whole  being  is  braced  to  take  advantage 
of  the  pleasure  that  is  offered.  No  cultural 
development  takes  place  without  personal 
participation;  in  fact,  we  may  fully  agree  with 
another  Danish  thinker — Carl  Lambek — that 
"the  nature  of  culture  is  activity. "  A  pleasure 
then,  to  have  cultural  value,  must  in  some  way 
have  made  us  active.  The  word  must  not  be 
misunderstood.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  active 
rest,  and  there  is  also  empty  apathy.  There 
are  active  spectators  and  languid  lookers-on. 
But  in  our  days  of  high  pressure  people  are 
often  too  tired  for  this  activity  of  rest  and 
vision.  They  therefore  content  themselves 
with  the  empty  pastimes  which  demand  no 
expenditure  of  force,  and  bring  no  contribu- 


\ 

Recreative  Culture  145 

tion  of  force  either.  This  is  especially  true 
of  the  physically  over-tired.  And  this  is  not 
the  least  of  the  reasons  for  wishing  that  the 
workers  may  obtain  sufficient  spare  time  to 
render  them  capable  of  the  more  productive 
pleasures.  Only  then  can  we  hope  that  a 
culture  will  be  within  the  reach  of  the  majority 
which  will  penetrate  their  whole  mode  of  life, 
which  will  proceed  from  the  internal  to  the  ex- 
ternal and  form  a  unity;  whereas  in  all  classes 
culture  is  now  limited  to  certain  spheres, 
even  if  it  is  not  confined  to  the  exterior.  The 
assertion  made  above  that  a  great  part  of 
enjoyment  consists  in  personal  activity  may 
be  illustrated  by  a  simple  example.  A  work- 
ing-man who  from  a  seat  enjoys  the  view 
of  a  beautiful  public  park  has  not  the  same 
delight  in  bushes  and  flowers  as  when  he 
has  seen  them  growing  in  his  own  garden. 
The  man  who  goes  into  the  country  alone  to 
take  his  quiet  pleasure  there,  brings  home 
a  far  greater  wealth  of  inner  and  outer  expe- 
rience— on  account  of  his  leisure  for  personal 
participation — than  does  he  who  crowds  on  to 
a  steamboat  or  a  train  for  a  "pleasure  trip" 
with  a  number  of  others.  Even  if  this  pleasure 
trip  does  not  result  in  a  lasting  aversion  to  the 
place  visited — owing  to  scattered  paper  and 


146         The  Younger  Generation 

fruit-peel,  broken  bottles,  flowers  plucked  and 
thrown  away,  snapped  branches,  etc.,  wit- 
nessing to  the  behaviour  of  the  excursionists — 
it  leaves  as  a  rule  with  the  participants  nothing 
but  a  memory  of  noise  and  racket,  of  crowding 
and  hurrying,  that  has  prevented  their  re- 
ceiving any  deeper  impression.  Travelling 
is  rightly  placed  in  the  front  rank  among 
pleasures  as  among  means  of  education.  But 
one  may  travel  round  the  world  without  ac- 
quiring any  increase  of  culture,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  one  may,  like  a  French  author, 
make  a  "journey  round  one's  room"  and  add 
greatly  to  one's  intellectual  wealth.  Those 
Japanese  who  during  the  war  with  Russia 
graced  their  simple  meal  of  rice,  when  they 
had  the  chance,  with  a  few  flowers,  possessed 
a  recreative  culture  many  times  superior  to 
that  of  the  European  excursionists,  who  ruth- 
lessly despoil  Nature's  fairest  spring  garment 
and  disfigure  trees  and  monuments,  tables  and 
seats  with  their  trivial  names;  nay,  who  often 
"amuse  themselves"  by  breaking  up  and 
ruining  what  others  have  been  at  great 
pains  to  lay  out  and  arrange. 

This  brutality  shows,  however,  that  "activ- 
ity" is  an  essential  part  of  enjoyment,  and 
that  the  instinct  of  activity  finds  its  outlet  in 


Recreative  Culture  147 

destruction  when  it  is  not  led  into  better 
channels.  This  then  is  precisely  the  point  at 
which  the  cultivation  of  enjoyment  ought  to 
begin. 

Children  of  all  classes  must  learn  good 
behaviour  in  rural  scenery.  It  should  be 
possible  to  combine  the  desire  of  making 
natural  history  collections  with  a  respect  for 
nature.  The  Scout  movement — properly  con- 
ducted— may  form  an  excellent  means  of 
arriving  at  a  nobler  and  more  considerate 
enjoyment  of  nature  in  this  respect.  Holiday 
camps  may  do  the  same.  The  microscope 
and  camera  should  never  be  absent  from  such 
a  camp. 

But  even  if  the  coarse  way  of  enjoying  one's 
self  in  the  country  gives  rise  to  most  annoy- 
ance in  others,  this  coarseness  is  not  the  most 
harmful  kind  to  the  individual  himself.  For 
the  impressions  of  nature  may  by  degrees 
affect  him  profoundly,  though  unconsciously, 
so  that  his  enjoyment  of  rural  scenes  will 
gradually  be  elevated. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  potentialities  of  ele-  v 
vation  lie  in  the  wretched  amusements  of  the 
country  fair,  such  as  the  ordinary  waxworks 
with  their  crude  horrors;  exhibitions  of  freaks, 
silly  conjuring  tricks,  and  so  on,  which  are  to 


148         The  Younger  Generation 

be  found  in  their  most  vulgar  forms  in  rural 
districts.  There,  too,  such  circus  and  variety 
programmes,  farces  and  cinematographs  are 
thought  good  enough  which  appeal  only  to  a 
coarse  love  of  sensation,  low  tastes,  and  vacant 
giggling.  Even  when  this  is  not  the  case,  such 
performances  are  often  so  devoid  of  meaning 
that  they  do  not  even  leave  behind  a  single 
definite  mental  image,  much  less  an  elevating 
idea  or  emotion.  On  this  miserable  mishmash 
— which  is  rubbish  when  it  is  not  poison — 
hundreds  of  thousands  spend  their  hard- 
earned  pence  and  their  still  more  valuable 
leisure. 

It  is  especially  on  the  picture  theatres  that 
time  and  money  are  now  squandered.  Un- 
doubtedly the  cinematograph  has  an  increas- 
ing goodwill  and  capacity  for  communicating 
instincts  and  impressions  of  value.  But  even 
when  the  programme  is  good,  the  cinemato- 
graph, taken  to  excess,  involves  intellectual 
dangers  just  as  much  as  intellectual  impulses. 
For  the  observation  is  blunted  and  confused 
by  a  number  of  rapidly  succeeding  impressions ; 
the  spectator  becomes  habituated  to  fleeting 
and  undigested  ideas,  to  the  listless  reception 
and  speedy  forgetting  of  matter  with  which  he 
is  crammed  full  without  any  personal  co-opera- 


Recreative  Culture  149 

tion,  without  any  extension  of  his  intellectual 
life;  nay,  without  even  retaining  any  clear 
image  in  his  memory — much  less  any  idea  or 
emotion. 

Assuredly  the  cinematograph  is  no  longer 
so  brutalising  and  demoralising  as  it  was  in 
the  beginning.  But  much  has  yet  to  be  accom- 
plished by  the  public,  the  critics,  and  the 
censorship,  before  it  becomes  a  thoroughly 
cultural  enjoyment. 

The  greater  number  of  the  films  still  show 
empty  sensational  pieces,  vulgarly  comic  or 
sentimental  dramas,  meaningless  everyday 
events,  all  equally  poor  in  cultural  value.  For 
neither  the  emotions  nor  the  inquiring  mind 
derive  any  nourishment  from  them;  only 
vacant  curiosity  and  love  of  sensation  are 
catered  for.  It  is  revolting  to  think  of  all  the 
worthless  stuff  that  thus  flows  day  after  day 
through  the  brains  of  the  people,  when  the 
cinematograph  might  be  so  powerful  an  edu- 
cational factor.  It  is  capable  of  giving  faithful 
pictures  of  the  age  and  its  passions;  living 
landscapes  and  views  of  city  life  with  genuine 
local  colour;  objects  and  processes  of  natural 
history,  as  revealed  by  the  microscope  and  by 
experiment;  intimate  peeps  into  animal  and 
plant  life.  It  can  show  us  the  operations 


150         The  Younger  Generation 

of  industries,  handicrafts,  and  trades;  it  can 
present  the  achievements  of  engineering,  sport, 
and  traffic.  And  in  all  this  it  can  not  only  give 
life  to  the  education  of  the  child,  but  also  be  a 
guide  to  the  studies  of  the  grown-up.  Thus 
scientists  now  consider,  for  instance,  that — 
thanks  to  the  film — experiments  on  living  ani- 
mals for  purposes  of  study  may  be  considerably 
reduced  in  number.  Then  the  cinematograph 
has  been  able  to  show  farmers  the  action 
of  new  agricultural  machinery,  and  manufac- 
turers new  methods  in  industry.  It  has  also 
served  to  demonstrate  model  arrangements 
in  the  sphere  of  social  aid,  etc. 

It  must  of  course  be  remembered  that  if, 
on  the  one  hand,  knowledge,  discerning  power, 
and  depth  of  feeling  may  be  increased  by  our 
thus  obtaining  true  ideas  and  impressions  of 
objects  and  phenomena  which  previously  were 
only  empty  words,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
fused impressions  result  from  the  mixed  pro- 
grammes of  cinematograph  displays.  The 
suggested  specialisation  of  these  shows  will 
therefore  soon  be  necessary,  if  the  cinemato- 
graph is  to  increase  its  influence  as  an  instru- 
ment of  culture. 

Here  an  objection  may  be  raised,  which 
applies  not  merely  to  films,  but  to  all  illu- 


Recreative  Culture  151 

strations:  that  there  are  some  events  and 
figures  that  the  imagination  itself  illustrates 
better  than  any  picture  can.  In  such  cases 
both  the  picture-book  and  the  film  will  be 
disappointing,  either  because  they  do  not  at 
all  correspond  to  the  image  of  one's  fancy,  or 
by  leaving  behind  them  a  great  void,  when 
they  displace  the  creativeness  of  one's  own 
imagination. 

From  what  has  just  been  said  it  follows  that 
the  function  of  the  film  is  above  all  to  give 
strong  impressions  of  such  processes  and 
phenomena  in  which  neither  accurate  obser- 
vation nor  free  play  of  fancy  is  important. 

Those  films  which  give  dramatic  pictures 
of  human  life  are  artistically  justifiable  only 
when  the  course  of  their  action  is  really  suited 
to  pantomime.  But  from  a  literary  point  of 
view  every  film  must  be  unconditionally  con- 
demned which  trespasses  upon  the  works  of 
the  great  dramatists;  those  works  in  which  a 
course  of  psychological  development  is  revealed, 
a  process  for  which  the  author — Ibsen,  for 
example — has  delicately  weighed  every  word 
that  serves  to  disclose  the  psychological  con- 
dition of  his  persons.  On  the  other  hand, 
living  dramatists  now  have  a  new  field  for 
their  invention,  in  the  construction  of  plays 


152         The  Younger  Generation 

intended  for  the  film,  in  which  words  will  be 
superfluous,  since  the  comic  or  tragic  action 
will  speak  sufficiently  for  itself.  Furthermore, 
there  are  many  novels  that  might  be  adapted 
into  effective  films.  This  appears  to  have 
been  done  with  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  The  Last 
Days  of  Pompeii,  Quo  Vadis,  and  others.  In 
Swedish  literature,  G.  Janson's  Abraham's 
Sacrifice  may  specially  be  pointed  out  as 
suited  to  similar  treatment. 

Finally,  the  cinematograph  ought  to  be 
turned  to  account  in  physical  culture,  and  that 
in  the  way  indicated  by  a  Swedish  author 
after  seeing  himself  on  the  film — in  giving  one 
a  faithful  picture  of  one's  own  "plastic  incon- 
gruities." By  this  means  bad  habits  or  incon- 
sistencies of  attitude,  gait,  and  gesture  might 
be  counteracted.  In  conjunction  with  the 
gramophone  the  film  might  be  to  actors, 
clergymen,  and  other  speakers  what  the  metal 
mirror,  the  sword-point,  and  the  pebbles  were 
to  Demosthenes. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  emphasised  that 
the  cinematograph  at  its  best  has  not  merely 
had  a  direct  influence  on  education  and  char- 
acter, but  has  also  awakened  a  desire  to  read 
the  books,  or  to  become  familiar  through  read- 
ing with  the  phenomena,  of  which  the  public 


Recreative  Culture  153 

has  been  given  a  notion  through  the  film. 
The  cinematograph  has  thus  acted  in  the 
same  way  as  cheap  editions  in  fostering  a  love 
of  reading.  Statistics  from  American  public 
libraries  show  a  steady  rise  in  the  number  of 
visitors  and  borrowers  since  the  cinematograph 
became  an  element  in  American  popular 
amusements.  And  this  literary  interest  shows 
a  constant  improvement  of  taste  in  the  choice 
of  reading  matter. 


ill 


The  sins  of  the  theatre  are  no  less  serious 
than  those  of  the  cinematograph.  The  former 
— and  this  applies  also  to  the  "People's" 
theatres — confines  itself  far  too  much  to  the 
field  of  low  comedy.  But  the  theatre,  like 
music,  ought  to  be  recreation  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word,  a  renovation  of  the  soul,  if 
this  aim  were  clear  to  all  its  leaders.  The 
best  effort  that  has  been  made  in  Sweden  to 
give  the  majority  good  dramatic  art  has  been 
that  of  the  society  known  as  Skadebanan. 
But  side  by  side  with  the  work  of  Skadebanan 
there  should  be  another,  that  of  encourag- 
ing people  to  act  themselves,  by  writing 
and  translating  suitable  plays;  by  furnishing 


154         The  Younger  Generation 

catalogues  of  good  dramatic  works,  both 
native  and  foreign,  that  would  be  suitable  for 
the  purpose;  and  finally  by  setting  the  right 
persons  to  work  at  staging  the  plays  as  well  as 
performing  them.  Thus  many  opportunities 
of  personal  activity  would  be  afforded:  as 
authors,  scene-painters,  actors,  costumiers, 
etc.  In  many  places — in  Tyrol,  Switzerland, 
and  Bavaria;  above  all  at  Oberammergau — 
not  only  the  young  people,  but  their  elders, 
take  part  in  the  open-air  plays  for  which 
certain  districts  are  celebrated.  And  if  we 
observe  the  people  of  these  districts,  we  may 
see  in  their  bearing,  expression,  and  speech  the 
refining  effect  that  noble  pleasure — practised 
from  generation  to  generation — can  bring 
about. 

Serious  young  people,  who  combine  cultiva- 
tion with  social  interests,  ought  to  devote  all 
their  intelligence  and  imagination  to  trying 
to  find  an  increasing  number  of  ennobling 
amusements  for  children  and  those  young 
people  who  are  exposed  to  the  influence  of 
coarse  pleasures. 

Perhaps  none  of  these  nobler  amusements 
is  more  important  than  the  toy  theatre  and 
amateur  acting. 


Recreative  Culture  155 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  life  of 
Goethe  know  what  a  powerful  influence  on 
his  development  he  ascribed  to  the  acting  of 
his  childhood  and  boyhood.  But  from  other 
sources  there  is  also  abundant  evidence  of 
the  admirable  educational  instrument  that 
amateur  acting  afforded  to  the  young  people 
of  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  and  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Some  schools  in  Sweden  have  already  begun 
to  adopt  acting  as  a  means  of  combining  utility 
with  enjoyment.  But  nowhere  else  in  our 
time  has  this  been  done  with  so  clear  an  aim 
as  in  America.  An  interesting  book  has  been 
published  on  this  subject.  It  gives  much- 
needed  guidance  for  making  acting  a  real 
means  of  the  education  of  youth.  For  the 
art  of  the  theatre  must  be  a  pleasure  which 
sets  in  motion  the  favourable  forces  in  the 
personality  of  the  young. x 

The  author  sets  out  from  the  idea  that  the 
joy  of  a  productive  activity  is  the  strongest  motive 
force  in  all  true  education.  She  rightly  points 
out  that  much  that  is  bad  in  young  people 
has  its  cause  in  unemployed  force,  force  that 

1  The  book  is  called  The  Dramatic  Festival,  and  is  written  by 
Anne  A.  T.  Craig  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York  and  London, 
1912). 


156         The  Younger  Generation 

longs  to  find  expression.  But  when  it  does  not 
find  it  in  a  way  that  satisfies  young  people's 
imagination  and  need  of  movement  healthily 
and  beautifully,  then  this  force  expends  itself 
in  a  coarse  and  ugly  way.  She  regards  the 
theatre  as  the  best  safety-valve  for  young 
people's  joy  of  life  and  also  as  the  best  means 
of  educating  the  young  to  purer  and  nobler 
feelings,  of  giving  their  will  a  loftier  direction, 
and  at  the  same  time  of  imparting  to  them 
physical  and  aesthetic  culture. 

She  does  not,  however,  wish  the  young  to 
undertake  the  great  dramatic  masterpieces, 
nor  yet  to  fall  back  upon  the  inferior  current 
repertory  of  the  theatres.  She  therefore  shows 
how  the  history  and  literature,  the  legends 
and  popular  tales  of  one's  own  and  other 
countries — nay,  even  certain  trades  and  call- 
ings and  natural  processes — are  suited  for 
dramatisation,  with  dance,  song,  and  panto- 
mime as  auxiliaries.  For  the  small  children 
the  result  is  dancing  games  of  a  more  com- 
plicated kind;  for  the  older  ones,  something 
more  in  the  nature  of  drama.  But  in  both 
cases  the  young  learn  to  acquire  a  bearing  at 
once  graceful  and  controlled,  besides  giving 
their  elders  an  excellent  opportunity  of  dis- 
covering their  aptitudes.  She  describes  how 


Recreative  Culture  157 

some  young  people  dramatise  the  material 
chosen  by  all;  how  others  make  and  paint 
the  scenery;  some  choose  or  compose  appro- 
priate music  and  practise  dances;  others 
again  make  costumes,  act  as  stage  managers, 
and  so  on.  And  all  this  gives  opportunity  for 
developing  originality,  insight,  and  capacity 
in  every  possible  direction.  The  young  learn 
to  work  together  for  a  definite  object  and  to 
subordinate  themselves  freely  to  an  authority 
they  themselves  have  chosen.  They  feel  that 
they  are  creating  and  are  therefore  happy. 
For  even  in  little  children's  games  the  creative 
joy  is  the  essential  part  of  the  pleasure. 

She  tells  us  how  the  children  began  by 
"dramatising"  the  different  seasons  and  em- 
ployments, rain  and  wind,  etc. ;  how  they  next 
"played"  fables — such  as  ^Esop's  of  the 
grasshoppers  and  the  ants — later  on  legends, 
and,  finally,  in  their  college  time,  dramas. 

The  sooner  the  children  themselves  can 
put  together  their  pieces,  the  better.  For  the 
author  rightly  insists  that  the  most  naive 
and  clumsy  home-made  thing  is  better  than 
one  provided  by  others. 

It  seems  to  me  that  young  socialists  and 
members  of  temperance  societies  could  bring 


158         The  Younger  Generation 

a  fresh  stream  into  their  work  of  education  if 
— with  the  help  of  young  people  of  literary 
culture — they  started  a  theatrical  enterprise 
of  this  sort  in  the  halls  where  they  meet.  A 
choice  of  good  plays,  easy  to  perform,  might, 
I  think,  be  made  by  the  directors  of  their 
studies  to  begin  with.  And  then  it  would 
be  an  easy  step  to  the  more  independent 
theatre,  in  which  the  plays  would  come  into 
being  within  the  circle  of  the  young  actors 
themselves. 

Of  course  it  is  necessary  that  the  idea  should 
be  taken  up  by  the  right  persons,  that  is  to 
say,  by  such  as  would  never  lose  sight  of  the 
educational  aim.  But  there  are  so  many 
young  people  in  the  country  with  a  conscious- 
ness of  their  responsibility  that  such  leaders 
would  not  be  difficult  to  find.  In  each  par- 
ticular district  the  opportunities  of  seeing 
theatrical  art  are  few.  On  the  other  hand, 
theatrical  games  might  occupy  many  winter 
evenings  in  an  entertaining  and  profitable 
way,  first  in  preparation  and  afterwards  in 
performance. 

I  believe,  with  the  American  writer  I  have 
quoted,  that  in  a  district  where  this  amuse- 
ment was  regularly  carried  on,  coarseness 
would  decline  and  better  manners,  as  well  as 


Recreative  Culture  159 

a  nobler  way  of  thinking,  would  gradually 
take  its  place. 

IV 

Among  the  pleasures  that  dramatic  art  can 
give,  a  good  play,  performed  by  dramatic 
artists,  obviously  stands  first.  That  our  time 
has  begun  to  provide  the  working-class  with 
greater  facilities  for  enjoying  genuine  dramatic 
art  as  well  as  good  music  is  no  new  thing; 
the  men  of  the  great  French  Revolution,  for 
instance,  tried  to  arrange  significant  popular 
festivals  and  theatrical  performances.  Their 
inspiration  came  from  Rousseau — that  Rous- 
seau whom  it  is  the  fashion  in  these  reactionary 
days  to  disparage,  together  with  the  French 
Revolution  itself — although  the  leaders  of 
culture  of  later  centuries  ought  rather  to 
use  Tegner's  words  of  Rousseau  and  of  the 
Revolution: 

Hvar  stodo  vi,  om  de  ej  varit  till  ? 
"  Where  were  we,  had  they  not  been?  " 

It  is  unspeakably  ludicrous  of  the  reaction- 
aries to  point  to  this  or  that  in  Rousseau, 
which  was  not  "new,"  or  to  show  that  the 
men  of  the  French  Revolution  derived  some 
or  other  of  their  ideas  from  other  countries. 


160        The  Younger  Generation 

Everyone  knows  that  the  fuel  for  a  great 
beacon  is  collected  from  all  sides,  but  that  it  is 
the  kindling  flame  that  makes  the  fire.  And 
it  was  this  flame  that  Rousseau — and  after 
him  the  French  Revolution — supplied  in  the 
matter  of  popular  festivals  as  in  others. 

Rousseau  gives  a  splendid  motto  for  such 
festivals  in  these  words:  "  They  should  be  such, 
that  each  may  see  and  love  himself  in  all  the 
rest,  in  order  that  all  may  thus  be  more  closely 
united."  Rousseau  reminds  us  of  the  festivals 
of  the  ancients  to  show  his  meaning.  And  it 
was  in  the  spirit  of  Rousseau  and  of  the 
ancients  that  the  best  men  of  the  Revolution 
wished  to  give  the  people  national  festivals 
and  spectacles,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
"  glorify  those  events  of  its  past  and  present  that 
are  most  precious  to  a  free  people."  Plastic 
art,  music,  drama,  athletic  sports,  and  awards 
of  prizes  ought  to  form  part  of  these  festivals, 
which  must  be  of  such  a  kind  as  to  "make  the 
old  happy  through  memories,  the  young  through 
victories,  and  the  children  through  the  hope  of 
similar  triumphs" 

That  this  programme  could  only  be  imper- 
fectly realised  during  the  stormy  period  of 
the  French  Revolution  does  not  diminish  the 
vital  force  of  the  idea.  And  nothing  is  more  cer- 


Recreative  Culture  161 

tain  than  that  a  nobler  society  will  fashion  its 
festivals  according  to  such  programmes.  The 
working-men  who  aspire  to  this  society  have  al- 
ready shown  themselves,  in  their  Stadium  festi- 
vals, alive  to  this  need.  But  only  when  the  new 
view  of  life,  which  is  gradually  penetrating 
mankind,  has  gained  the  force  of  a  religion,  can 
the  highest  festival  performances  be  united — 
as  in  antiquity — with  the  religious  cult  and 
thus  acquire  all  the  renovating  power  that 
was  possessed  by  the  festivals  of  Hellas. 

In  many  quarters — first  in  Germany  and 
France — the  idea  of  a  4t People's  Theatre" 
began  to  be  realised  at  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Among  its  enthusiastic  pro- 
moters was  the  now  world-famous  author  of 
Jean  Christophe,  Remain  Rolland.  Besides 
plays  for  the  People's  Theatre,  he  wrote  arti- 
cles on  it,  and  the  latter  have  been  collected 
in  a  volume. x  He  there  maintains  that  what 
the  people  really  desire  and  need  is  not  the 
old,  so-called  classical  drama;  for  the  present 
age  is  foreign  to  the  conflicts  that  furnished 
the  material  for  the  tragedies  of  the  seventeenth 

1  Remain  Rolland,  Le  thedtre  du  peuple  (Hachette  et  Cie., 
Paris,  1913).  This  book  should  be  read  by  all  who  believe  in 
the  theatre  as  a  means  of  popular  education.  His  novel  John 
Christopher  has  been  translated  into  English. 


162         The  Younger  Generation 

century,  for  instance,  and  to  the  comic  in- 
trigues described  in  the  old  comedies.  But 
still  less  fitting  is  it  to  give  the  people  the 
drama  of  the  present  day,  which  lives  on  the 
conventions  and  vices  of  the  middle  classes. 
What  the  people  need  is  a  dramatic  art  which 
sets  up  great  aims,  which  steels  the  will,  which 
widens  the  view  of  life,  which  purifies  and 
deepens  the  emotions.  The  people  are  too  good 
to  be  put  off  with  the  inanities  or  immoralities 
of  the  middle-class  drama.  The  People's 
Theatre  must  be  a  weapon  against  the  decay- 
ing society  of  the  present  day;  nay,  it  may  be 
the  voice  of  the  coming  society.  A  new  world 
demands  a  new  art.  Only  such  an  art,  re- 
newing itself  with  the  age,  has  any  value  for 
the  people.  Some  of  the  great  masterpieces 
of  the  past,  of  universal  human  interest,  must 
find  a  place  on  the  people's  stage.  Otherwise 
it  must  be  the  interpreter  of  our  rich  and 
agitated  period.  But  not  of  those  aspects 
which  the  plays  of  the  middle  class — whether 
tragedies,  comedies,  or  farces — depict:  adultery 
and  sharp  practice  in  business.  This  kind 
of  drama  should  not  be  allowed  to  befoul  that 
source  of  renewal  which  the  theatre  may  be- 
come for  the  people.  No,  the  people  must 
have  a  drama  which  offers  living,  irresistible 


Recreative  Culture  163 

examples  of  a  great  spirit,  a  shining  devotion, 
an  unconquerable  will  which  aims  at  lofty 
ends.  Or  again,  plays  with  true  comic  power, 
in  which  laughter  attacks  what  is  base  and 
ugly»  petty  and  contradictory,  whether  in 
individuals,  in  a  class,  or  in  society  as  a  whole. 
But,  Rolland  continues,  in  order  to  obtain 
such  a  theatre  for  the  people,  we  must  first 
have  a  people  with  sufficient  leisure  to  be  able 
to  devote  itself  to  noble  pleasures;  a  people  con- 
scious of  its  great  tasks  and  thus  disposed  to 
reject  the  dramas  that  are  now  offered  to  it. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  fourth  estate,  when 
it  has  won  its  way,  becomes  simply  the  middle 
class  over  again — equally  coarse  in  its  amuse- 
ments, equally  hypocritical  in  its  morality, 
equally  unintelligent  in  its  politics  as  the 
present  middle  class — then  there  is  nothing 
to  be  hoped  for  from  the  future.  Only  if  the 
fourth  estate  carries  through  a  moral  as  well 
as  a  social  reformation  can  we  obtain  a  really 
new  society.  And  with  it  a  new  theatrical 
art,  which  will  be  at  once  a  real  enjoyment 
and  a  source  of  renewed  moral  energy;  an  art 
which  will  be  a  bath  of  rebirth;  an  art  which 
will  create  a  more  intimate  bond  between 
human  beings  and  a  greater  vigour  in  the 
individual.  This  does  not  imply  that  art  is 


164         The  Younger  Generation 

to  preach  morality;  then  it  would  no  longer 
be  art.  But  it  must  overflow  with  strength, 
health,  and  gladness.  It  need  not  restrict  its 
choice  of  subject  to  the  present  day  or  to  the 
people  itself.  It  is  not  the  outside  of  exist- 
ence that  the  people  needs  or  even  wishes  to 
see  in  art.  No,  it  is  the  inner  music,  it  is  the 
eternal  elements  in  home  life,  the  mystery  in 
all  that  is,  the  tragedy  of  everyday  existence, 
that  must  affect  the  people  in  art.  That 
being  so,  the  material  may  be  taken  from  the 
life  of  the  present  or  of  the  past,  from  the 
history  of  one's  own  or  of  a  foreign  nation, 
from  reality  or  legend.  The  important  point 
is  that  ideas  and  ideals,  errors  and  prejudices, 
be  represented  so  that  they  always  concern  us 
who  are  now  living.  .  .  .  The  aim  of  art  is 
to  multiply  life  a  thousand  fold.  All  art  must 
make  life  greater,  stronger,  more  moral,  and 
more  beautiful.  May  art  arouse  hatred  of  all 
oppression,  all  baseness,  all  malice!  May  it 
at  the  same  time  unite  individuals  in  a  better 
understanding  of  and  a  more  intimate  fellow- 
feeling  with  each  other.  Thus  far  Rolland. 

It  is  only  through  this  new  spirit  that  the 
theatre  can  be  elevated,  and  certainly  not  by 
the  censorship. 


Recreative  Culture  165 

What  has  been  quoted  above  points  to  one 
of  the  foremost  tasks  of  recreative  culture, 
that  of  rendering  valuable  pleasures  still 
more  valuable  by  increasing  their  significance 
as  vehicles  of  culture. 

Another  sphere  is  that  of  athletics.  The 
more  these  are  turned  into  "sport"— with 
competitions,  records,  and  prizes — the  less  do 
they  contribute  to  culture.  The  more  they 
aim  at  general  physical  development,  inward 
as  well  as  outward  health  and  equilibrium; 
the  more  they  are  practised  with  the  sole 
object  of  attaining  increased  self-control  and 
presence  of  mind,  increased  capacity  for 
method  and  co-operation,  an  enhancement  of 
power  and  courage,  the  more  cultural  they 
will  be.  One-sided  sport  cannot  even  produce 
a  graceful  and  supple  body,  which,  however, 
ought  to  be  a  main  consideration  in  physical 
culture.  Our  Swedish  gymnastics  rightly 
practised,  as  well  as  rhythmical  gymnastics, 
folk-dances,  and  folk-games  are,  as  regards 
style — and  graceful  style — more  important  in 
physical  culture  than  certain  forms  of  athletics. 
From  a  cultural  point  of  view,  those  kinds  of 
athletic  sports  must  be  put  in  the  first  rank 
which  facilitate  a  greater  familiarity  with 
nature.  From  this  point  of  view  skiing  and 


1 66         The  Younger  Generation 

skating,  rowing  and  swimming  ought  not 
even  to  be  reckoned  among  "athletics,"  but 
to  be  taught  to  the  young  as  indispensable 
acquirements. 


I  have  quoted  Romain  Rolland  above  be- 
cause I  agree  with  every  word  of  his  and  hope 
that  these  words  may  open  the  eyes  of  thought- 
ful young  people  to  the  task  that  lies  before 
them,  both  in  respect  of  the  self-culture  that 
demands  noble  pleasures,  and  of  the  recreative 
culture  which  I  have  already  insisted  upon  as 
being  so  important  a  part  of  the  mission  of  the 
young.  It  will  not  do  to  cast  the  whole  blame 
for  certain  aspects  of  modern  coarseness  upon 
society.  The  thoughtful  among  us  at  least 
ought  to  acknowledge  that  the  worthless 
cinematograph  and  theatre  performances,  as 
well  as  the  wretched  "Nick  Carter"  style  of 
literature,  bear  a  heavy  responsibility  for  the 
demoralisation  of  youth  which  all  deplore. 
Social  Democrats  ought  to  be  the  first  to  see 
that  they  cannot  afford,  either  economically 
or  intellectually,  to  allow  themselves  amuse- 
ments of  a  kind  that  makes  the  managers  rich 
and  the  audience  poor.  The  Social  Demo- 


Recreative  Culture  167 

cracy  must  begin  to  turn  its  back  upon  this 
extortion — of  character,  intelligence,  and  feel- 
ing— as  resolutely  as  it  does  upon  all  other 
capitalist  extortion.  Just  as  shamelessly  as 
society  offers  alcoholic  intoxication  does  com- 
mercial enterprise  supply  the  amusements 
that  may  be  compared  with  intoxication. 
Opposition  to  them  can  only  be  brought  about 
by  a  new  temperance  movement,  directed, 
like  the  old  one,  by  the  instinct  of  self-defence 
in  the  people  themselves.  Already  working- 
men  are  to  be  found  who  feel  that  they  cannot 
afford  and  have  no  right  to  waste  their  spiritual 
powers,  their  leisure,  and  their  means  upon 
empty  pleasures.  But  what  is  wanted  is  that 
more  and  more  shall  become  "class-conscious " 
in  this  sense.  Only  then  will  the  new  "tem- 
perance movement"  just  referred  to  begin  and 
the  great  majority  learn  to  test  their  pleasures 
by  such  questions  as  these: 

Have  we  gained  an  intellectual  renewal? 
Has  our  laughter  really  gladdened  the  heart? 
Was  it  at  the  expense  of  stupidity  and  fool- 
ishness, or  of  goodness  and  honesty  that  we 
laughed?  Have  we  experienced  any  emotion 
that  gave  the  soul  a  new  tension  towards 
noble  ends?  Have  we  received  any  impres- 
sion of  beauty  to  carry  with  us  while  at  work? 


168         The  Younger  Generation 

If  the  answer  to  some  of  these  questions  be 
not  "yes,"  then  the  pleasure  was  an  empty 
one,  if  not  a  bad  one. 

Someone  may  object  that  it  will  be  hard 
to  find  amusements  if  they  are  to  be  tested 
so  severely. 

Nothing  is  further  from  the  truth.  The 
more  a  man  turns  away  from  stimulating 
pleasures — such  as  whisky — the  more  he  will 
learn  to  enjoy  a  number  of  things  previously 
overlooked  as  means  of  recreation.  These  are 
to  be  found  in  the  realm  of  reality  as  well  as 
in  that  of  imagination ;  in  the  world  of  nature 
as  in  that  of  man;  in  the  children's  sphere  as 
in  that  of  animals ;  in  the  little  world  we  domin- 
ate as  in  the  great  one  we  see  glimpses  of. 
These  pleasures  are  to  be  won  by  means  of  the 
microscope,  telescope,  and  camera,  as  well  as 
by  refined  dancing,  games,  and  sports;  by  good 
music,  by  art,  and  by  poetry.  A  whole  long 
human  life  will  not  suffice  for  the  enjoyment 
of  all  the  rich  and  pure  sources  of  delight 
that  nature  and  culture  have  to  offer,  and 
nowadays  at  a  cheap  price.  But  so  long  as 
people  throw  away  time,  money,  and  health 
upon  gormandising,  alcohol,  nicotine,  and 
similar  "enjoyments";  so  long  as  they  are 
not  ashamed  of  thus  sinning  against  soul  and 


Recreative  Culture  169 

body;  so  long  as  they  do  not  feel  a  passion  for 
their  own  physical  and  mental  health  and 
strength — a  passion  which  finds  expression  in 
a  complete  and  purposeful  art  of  life,  rejecting 
everything  that  fetters  health  and  strength — 
so  long  can  we  have  no  hope  of  a  recreative 
culture.  Nor  can  we  hope  for  any  physical 
culture  of  real  recreative  value ;  that  is  to  say, 
with  the  power  of  making  the  individual  more 
developed,  more  shapely,  and  more  harmoni- 
ous in  body  and  soul. 

It  is  strange  how  little  men's  moral  ideas 
have  to  do  with  their  pleasures.  Professed 
pietists,  it  is  true,  abstain  from  dancing  and 
the  theatre — just  as  much  as  from  coarser 
pleasures — since  they  regard  these  as  incom- 
patible with  a  holy  life.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  majority  of  people  in  every  class  think 
they  may  take  part  with  impunity  in  anything 
in  the  way  of  amusement. 

But  this  is  just  what  is  excluded  by  a 
genuine  recreative  culture  and  art  of  life. 
Instead  of  "taking  part  in  anything,"  one 
must  learn  to  discover  just  those  pleasures 
which  have  most  to  offer.  For  even  among 
noble  pleasures  there  are  some  which  give  one 
kind  of  recreation  but  not  the  other.  In  order 
to  find  out  what  kind  of  profit  one  derives,  it 


170         The  Younger  Generation 

is  really  necessary  to  "try  a  little  taste"  of 
each.  Then  it  will  be  possible  to  decide  what 
one  can  and  will  allow  one's  self  in  the  matter 
of  enjoyment,  as  in  every  other  department 
of  life.  Each  ought  to  draw  up  a  plan  for  his 
life — for  work  and  for  repose,  as  a  member  of 
a  family  and  as  a  citizen — in  order  to  arrive 
at  a  proper  proportion  between  the  different 
parts,  as  well  as  harmony  between  them  and 
the  inner  personality. 

Most  people  are  without  a  plan  of  this  sort 
and  therefore  show  themselves  vague,  desul- 
tory, and  boorish  in  their  habits.  They  make 
friends  without  any  inner  prompting;  they 
eat  far  more  than  is  good  for  them;  they  dress 
contrary  to  their  own  taste ;  they  amuse  them- 
selves like  the  rest  of  the  crowd;  they  spend 
more  than  they  can  afford — all  because  they 
have  never  given  an  hour's  thought  to  what 
they  really  need  and  wish  for  in  their  hearts 
in  these  and  all  other  matters. 


VI 


For  these  and  a  thousand  other  reasons  one 
is  tempted  to  lose  hope  of  human  progress. 
That  is,  at  those  moments  when  one  forgets 
that  the  discernment  and  will-power  of  the 


Recreative  Culture  171 

race  cannot  yet  be  mature.  It  is  not  many 
thousand  years  since  we  became  reading 
beings;  it  was  only  a  few  millenniums  earlier 
that  we  became  talking  beings.  And  it  is 
probably  inevitable  that  the  race  as  a  whole 
must  require  a  few  more  thousand  years  to 
become  cultured  in  thought  and  action. 

The  majority  is  still  ape-like  in  so  many 
other  respects  that  we  cannot  be  surprised 
to  find  it  so  in  the  least  serious  part  of  its 
life — its  amusements! 

And  yet  in  our  days  of  specialised  labour  it 
is  of  increasingly  serious  importance  that 
leisure  should  be  employed  in  such  amusements 
as  may  counteract  the  resulting  one-sidedness. 
A  many-sided  work  in  itself  involves  culture; 
the  man  condemned  to  one-sided  work  re- 
quires to  supply  the  inevitable  gaps  in  his 
culture  by  means  of  his  pleasures.  It  is 
therefore  doubly  painful  to  see  manual  labour- 
ers flocking  round  those  places  of  amusement 
that  only  excite  silly  giggles  or  malicious  grins, 
coarse  fun  or  vulgar  love  of  sensation.  In  the 
last  instance,  the  women  are  the  worst.  It  is 
the  lowest  instincts  of  the  herd  that  find  their 
outlet  in  the  thirst  for  sensation  which  is  fos- 
tered by  the  Press  and  in  the  law-courts,  at 
notable  funerals  and  weddings,  accidents,  etc. 


172         The  Younger  Generation 

To  follow  the  crowd  is — in  every  respect — 
a  proof  of  impersonality  in  culture.  But 
nowhere  does  a  man  show  himself  so  imper- 
sonal, so  poor  in  invention,  so  much  of  a  gre- 
garious animal,  as  in  his  choice  of  pleasures. 

As  a  proof  of  lack  of  recreative  culture  may 
be  quoted  the  disposition  to  enjoy  even  noble 
pleasures  in  crowds.  No  doubt  on  festival 
occasions,  at  the  theatre,  at  competitions,  and 
musical  festivals  the  feeling  is  heightened  by 
passing  from  one  to  another  in  a  great  mass  of 
people.  But  books,  scenery,  art,  and  often 
music  are  grasped  in  a  more  intimate  way 
when  only  one  or  a  few  others  are  present.  A 
large  number  are  never  so  concentrated  and 
quiet  that  each  can  assimilate  the  beauty  of 
nature,  or  a  reading,  or  a  work  of  art  as  com- 
pletely as  if  he  were  alone.  But  not  even 
when  alone  does  a  person  derive  real  profit 
from  any  recreation  unless  he  brings  to  it  an 
open  mind,  a  mind  prepared  for  full  reception, 
for  giving  itself  up  to  the  wealth  of  the  moment 
without  a  side-thought.  Those,  for  instance, 
who  go  into  the  woods  with  the  discussion  of 
the  evening  before  in  their  thoughts,  get  very 
little  of  the  sylvan  scene.  The  main  condi- 
tions of  genuine  enjoyment  are  that  neither 
body  nor  mind  be  weary;  that  previous  or 


Recreative  Culture  173 

present  impressions  do  not  hinder  concentra- 
tion; that  every  approach  be  kept  open  for 
the  pleasurable  impressions  one  receives,  and 
that  it  be  possible  to  assimilate  and  adapt  the 
new  material  in  peace.  For — as  the  Danish 
author,  Lambek,  already  referred  to,  has 
admirably  shown — only  in  stillness  can  one's 
impressions  be  precipitated,  or  in  an  even 
better  metaphor  be  rooted  so  that  they  may 
grow.  The  same  is  true  of  social  intercourse. 
This  is  only  a  real  recreation  when  we  bring 
into  society  a  mind  averted  from  the  labours 
and  cares  of  the  day,  a  mind  willing  to  give 
and  to  receive.  A  pleasure  truly  experienced 
becomes  an  addition  to  life,  a  growth,  new 
leaves  and  branches  on  our  tree  of  life.  The 
more  our  soul  is  alive,  the  more  will  our  plea- 
sures become  real  events  in  our  existence, 
experiences  which  then  in  their  turn  make  the 
soul  still  more  alive,  in  that  our  pleasure  has 
set  new  forces  in  motion  or  renewed  those  that 
already  were  in  motion.  The  more  impress- 
ible a  person  is,  the  more  does  he  experience 
with  body  and  soul  and  all  his  senses.  The 
art  of  enjoying  one's  self  depends  upon  the 
capacity  for  seeing  the  significance  that  lies 
concealed  in  everyday  phenomena.  Indeed, 
this  is  precisely  the  finest  culture,  which  en- 


174         The  Younger  Generation 

ables  us  to  find  pleasure  in  the  most  simple 
things.  The  emptier  a  soul  is,  the  duller  does 
it  find  life  and  the  more  does  it  seek  a  tem- 
porary stimulus  in  irritant  pleasures.  When 
a  soulful  person  is  dull,  it  means  that  the 
company  or  the  entertainment  in  which  he 
involuntarily  finds  himself  is  not  capable  of 
setting  free  his  energy;  when  he  has  enjoyed 
himself  it  means  that  he  has  experienced  the 
feeling  of  having  lived  completely  and  strongly 
at  some  point.  When  the  soulless  one  is 
bored  by  a  noble  pleasure,  this  means  that — 
owing  to  defects  in  his  nature  or  culture — he 
is  destitute  of  any  connecting  link  between 
himself  and  the  pleasure  in  question,  which 
is  thus  incapable  of  setting  his  powers  in 
motion.  And  when  he  is  amused  by  what  is 
coarse  and  low,  this  means  that  such  things 
unite  with  and  reinforce  coarse  and  low 
instincts  in  himself. 

To  illustrate  what  has  been  said  I  will  take 
a  working-class  family  on  a  Sunday  excursion. 
The  air  and  sunshine  refresh  the  body;  the 
song  of  birds  and  the  murmur  of  waves,  the 
scent  of  flowers  and  the  whisper  of  the  forest 
rejoice  all  the  senses  and  awaken  sweet  memo- 
ries. The  happy  play  of  the  children  and  the 
rested  expression  in  the  tired  faces  of  husband 


Recreative  Culture  175 

and  wife  warm  the  hearts  of  the  parents. 
Observations  are  made  which  give  substance 
for  thought.  And  on  their  return  home  all 
have  been  truly  "renewed."  Perhaps  all 
they  say  is  that  they  have  "had  a  jolly  day." 
But  those  few  words  imply  that  the  whole 
being  has  obtained  rest  and  strength  for  several 
days.  Compare  now  this  family  with  those 
who  come  home  after  a  crowded  bean-feast,  at 
which  quantities  of  food  and  drink  have  been 
the  chief  thing;  and  who  finish  the  day  mud- 
dled with  alcohol  and  poisoned  with  smoke, 
to  wake  up  tired,  irritable,  and  disinclined 
for  work. 

As  long  ago  as  1896  I  pointed  out  in  a  little 
essay  the  weakening  effect,  directly  on  home- 
feeling  and  indirectly  on  patriotism,  of  the 
dying  out  of  the  old  festival  customs.  The 
present  languid  indifference  as  regards  both 
these  celebrations  and  the  ordinary  daily 
habits  makes  our  homes  devoid  of  style  and 
poor  in  poetry.  No  artificial  and  pretentious 
customs  can  take  the  place  with  the  children 
of  the  old,  simple  festival  usages  and  amuse- 
ments. It  is  the  children  who  are  anxious 
to  have  everything  "as  usual";  the  children 
who  suffer  when  any  prized  custom  is  set  aside. 


176         The  Younger  Generation 

In  this  the  children's  instinct  is  entirely  right 
as  opposed  to  the  apathy  of  their  elders. 

For  it  is  only  constantly  recurring  habits 
that  have  the  power,  on  work-days  and  holi- 
days, to  impart  deep  and  heartfelt  impres- 
sions. From  this  point  of  view  it  is  a  pity 
when  parents  omit  to  give  a  fixed  style  to  the 
great  festivals  of  the  year,  as  well  as  to  family 
celebrations.  That  families  in  great  cities 
are  getting  more  and  more  into  the  way  of 
keeping  Christmas  and  other  festivals  at 
tourist  hotels  is  one  of  the  many  symptoms 
of  the  degeneration  of  family  life  in  cities. 
In  the  country,  on  the  other  hand,  pietism 
has  been  largely  to  blame  for  the  decay  of  the 
beautiful  old  festival  customs.  Thus  in  my 
young  days  I  heard  a  clergyman  compare  the 
dance  round  the  May-pole  to  that  of  the 
Israelites  round  the  golden  calf! 

To  keep  old  festivals  is  not  a  meaningless 
piece  of  childishness,  but  a  fine  old  custom 
which  links  us  of  the  present  day  with  our 
forefathers  and  their  emotions. 

Even  if  city  families  try  to  keep  up  the 
recreations  which  formerly  brought  young 
and  old  together  for  music  and  reading  aloud, 
for  romps  and  games  of  skill,  for  story-telling 
and  fireside  chat,  they  have  a  very  unequal 


Recreative  Culture  177 

fight  with  all  the  things  that  take  the  young 
away  from  home — schools,  sport,  societies, 
and  more  or  less  healthy  amusements.  As 
regards  working-class  homes,  we  know  that 
nowadays  the  mother  as  often  as  the  father  is 
employed  out-of-doors  and  in  such  circum- 
stances it  is  of  course  impossible  for  her  to 
provide  the  children  with  the  innocent  amuse- 
ments of  former  days.  I  wonder  whether  the 
children  of  the  present  day  would  even  con- 
descend to  the  childish  amusements  of  their 
grandparents,  such  as  roasting  apples  or 
baking  toffy?  In  the  country  perhaps,  but 
in  town?  To  this  must  be  added  the  crowded 
state  of  working-class  dwellings,  unfortunate 
from  every  point  of  view,  which  forces  the 
children  and  young  people  into  the  street, 
unless  special  institutions,  such  as  clubs, 
libraries,  and  so  on,  are  open  to  them. 

In  this  connection  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  temperance  movement  counteracts 
coarseness  and  that  socialist  ideals  elevate  the 
minds  of  the  people,  so  that  many  low  amuse- 
ments are  becoming  repulsive  to  an  increasing 
number.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  recreative 
culture  is  being  counteracted  by  the  specialisa- 
tion of  labour,  which  does  more  and  more  to 
kill  the  joy  of  work.  For  the  man  who  is 


178         The  Younger  Generation 

weary  and  bored  is  the  most  likely  to  take  to 
poor  or  worthless  pleasures,  unless  he  con- 
sciously struggles  against  this  tendency  in 
himself  or  his  companions — in  other  words, 
unless  his  eyes  have  been  opened  to  the  import- 
ance of  recreative  culture. 

If  much  is  now  being  done  in  large  towns, 
through  private  enterprise  as  well  as  through 
the  schools  and  other  public  institutions,  to 
teach  the  youth  of  both  sexes  while  in  their 
teens  to  spend  their  money  and  their  leisure 
hours  on  nobler  pleasures,  in  the  country  such 
provisions  for  the  young  are  very  few  and  far 
between.  I  heard  the  other  day  a  young  couple 
declare  their  intention  of  quietly  throwing 
open  a  large  room  in  their  country  house,  with 
a  fire  and  lamps,  books,  illustrated  papers,  and 
so  on,  where  the  boys  and  young  men  who 
hang  about  the  cross-roads  might  meet  on 
winter  evenings.  And  how  easily  such  resorts 
might  be  provided  in  parish-rooms  as  well  as 
in  country  houses !  Of  course  with  the  proviso 
that  cards,  alcohol,  and  tobacco  are  strictly 
forbidden.  How  willingly  those  young  people 
who  have  had  greater  educational  advantages 
ought  to  devote  an  occasional  evening  to 
instructing  the  others  in  dancing,  games,  or 
choral  singing !  How  glad  those  working-men 


Recreative  Culture  179 

who  themselves  play  the  fiddle,  mouth-organ, 
or  concertina  would  be  to  have  the  chance  of 
contributing  to  the  entertainment.  If  some- 
one gave  a  backgammon  board,  dominoes, 
chessmen,  spillikins,  etc.,  and  showed  how 
they  were  to  be  used,  a  fresh  amusement 
would  be  found.  An  occasional  reading  from 
an  amusing,  popular  book,  and  special  even- 
ings for  music  and  dancing  could  easily  be 
arranged.  By  these  simple  means  the  winter 
evenings — the  heavy  boredom  of  which  now 
does  more  than  anything  else  to  drive  young 
people  from  the  country  to  the  towns — would 
be  transformed  into  bright  spots  in  everyday 
life,  and  would  serve  at  the  same  time  to  raise 
the  tone  of  the  whole  district's  amusements. 

In  all  intellectual  culture — of  which  recrea- 
tive culture  forms  part — daily  habits  are  what 
tell  in  the  long  run.  Only  with  nobler  daily 
pleasures  can  we  get  firm  ground  to  build 
upon. 


VII 


I  have  already  said  that  the  young  Social 
Democrats  must  not  stop  at  the  fight  against 
"Nick  Carter"  literature  and  intoxicating 
liquors,  but  that,  side  by  side  with  the  struggle 


i8o         The  Younger  Generation 

for  increased  leisure,  they  must  strive  to  ob- 
tain the  recreative  culture  without  which  that 
leisure  will  be  ill-spent.  Recreative  culture 
ought  to  be  a  powerful  factor  in  the  splendid 
educational  activity  both  of  the  young  tem- 
perance workers  and  of  the  young  Social 
Democrats,  and  in  their  awakening  zeal  for 
physical  culture.  The  young  must  root  out 
the  prejudice  in  which  the  older  generation 
grew  strong  but  one-sided:  that  if  the  condi- 
tions of  production  and  distribution  be  re- 
formed and  intoxicating  liquors  forbidden, 
then  all  other  social  incongruities  will  cease 
of  themselves.  That  view  is  a  superstition. 

Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  in  a 
society  thus  reformed,  new  disparities  will 
make  life  unbearable,  unless  new  men — with  a 
loftier  ethical  and  aesthetic,  physical  and  intel- 
lectual culture — take  the  new  society  in  hand. 

It  is  true  that  with  better  conditions  of 
production  and  distribution  the  majority  will 
have  more  spare  time  and  more  means  for 
real  recreation;  will  be  relieved  from  the  pres- 
sure of  economic  cares.  And  all  this  is  the 
qualification  for  what  I  have  called  recreative 
culture.  But  the  use  to  which  these  advant- 
ages may  be  put  may  still  be  good  or  bad, 
according  as  the  people  are  themselves. 


Recreative  Culture  181 

Side  by  side  with  the  class  war,  the  culture 
war  must  ceaselessly  be  waged  by  the  young 
and  among  the  young,  upon  whom  rests  the 
responsibility  of  making  the  new  society  better 
for  all  than  the  old  could  be.  In  the  best  of 
the  young  Social  Democrats  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility as  regards  this  culture  war  is  even  now 
alive. 

But  this  sense  must  also  be  communicated 
to  the  majority  with  the  hundredfold  force 
of  an  agitation.  Only  when  the  Social 
Democrat  shall  ask  himself  every  evening 
whether  during  the  day  he  has  worked,  amused 
himself,  or  discussed  politics  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  himself  more  efficient,  more  conscien- 
tious, mentally  richer,  happier — and  can  reply 
to  the  question  in  the  affirmative — will  the 
happiness  which  international  socialism  pro- 
mises to  all  appear  on  the  horizon.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  is  obliged  to  answer  no, 
then  he  will  have  reduced  his  party's  chances 
of  victory  by  just  so  much  as  he  himself  has 
that  day  declined  in  value. 

It  is  true  enough  that  a  strong  party  may 
win  victories  through  the  firm  cohesion  of  all 
its  parts;  but  only  victories  over  opposition. 
As  soon  as  the  opposition  is  broken  and  the 
building  of  the  new  society  commenced,  cohe- 


1 82         The  Younger  Generation 

sion  will  no  longer  be  enough;  it  will  then 
depend  on  the  nature  of  every  component 
part  whether  the  whole  is  to  be  strong  and 
beautiful.  Social-Democratic  articles  of  faith 
can  no  more  abolish  the  laws  of  nature  than 
can  theological  ones.  And  it  is  a  spiritual  law 
of  nature  that  the  greatest  truths  are  bungled 
by  inferior  adherents. 

All  slowness  of  development,  all  relapses, 
all  reactions  are  explained  by  this  fact,  re- 
peated century  after  century. 

Thus,  then,  if  Social  Democracy  intends  to 
create  anything  lasting,  each  of  its  members 
must  begin  to  shape  his  individual  life  accord- 
ing to  a  lofty  ideal.  Neither  in  love  nor  poli- 
tics, money  matters  nor  work,  education  nor 
pleasures  will  it  do  to  "take  life  as  it  comes." 
Every  time  a  man  sacrifices  something  valu- 
able for  something  worthless ;  every  time  he  is 
remiss  with  regard  to  a  bad  habit,  lax  in  per- 
forming a  duty,  coarse  in  his  pleasures,  he 
lowers  the  power  of  his  soul  and  reduces  his 
standard  of  life.  Every  time  he  chooses  a 
noble  line  of  conduct  rather  than  an  ignoble 
one,  a  productive  enjoyment  rather  than  an 
empty  one,  he  becomes  not  only  a  better  man 
but  also  a  better  servant  of  his  social  ideal. 

This   ideal   implies,    among   other   things, 


Recreative  Culture  183 

that  one  day  we  shall  arrive  at  that  freedom 
from  care  which  Jesus  symbolised  in  the  images 
of  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  birds  of  the 
air.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  taking  thought 
for  the  morrow  is  what  characterises  the  lives 
of  the  majority.  But  we  may  look  forward 
with  certainty  to  a  society  without  these  con- 
suming cares  of  subsistence,  which  now  make 
most  human  lives  so  cheerless  and  empty. 
A  better  state  of  things,  in  which  "money, 
money,  money"  will  no  longer  be  the  chief 
question  of  life,  that  is  the  primary  condition 
which  must  precede  the  creation  of  a  higher 
spiritual  existence.  But  the  reforms  which 
are  necessary  in  order  that  this  condition  may 
be  satisfied  must  never  be  regarded  otherwise 
than  as  means  to  this  higher  spiritual  existence 
of  which  we  are  speaking.  It  is  not  enough 
to  introduce  more  common  sense,  coherence, 
system,  appropriateness,  and  harmony  into 
the  production  and  distribution  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life;  all  these  things  must  also  enter 
into  the  conduct  of  the  individual  citizen.  It 
is  not  enough  to  increase  the  resources  and 
leisure  of  all;  what  is  above  all  important  is 
that  their  mode  of  life  should  acquire  more 
perfect  forms. 

I  have  already  put  forward  in  my  Essays 


1 84         The  Younger  Generation 

an  idea  which  has  become  an  ever  firmer  belief 
with  me;  that,  the  more  rich  and  beautiful 
life  becomes,  the  fewer  will  be  the  followers 
of  the  "liberal"  arts.  Only  the  great,  crea- 
tive spirits  will,  I  believe,  continue  to  produce 
art  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word:  the  art 
that  gradually  makes  the  lives  of  all  richer 
at  the  moment  and  awakens  an  intuition  of  a 
future  reality,  more  perfect  than  the  present. 
Great  art  is  only  produced  by  those  who  them- 
selves, with  senses  as  with  soul,  have  had  an 
ardent  and  profound  perception  of  the  mani- 
fold richness  of  life,  and  who  have  so  perfect 
a  control  of  the  sensuous  means  of  expression 
belonging  to  their  art  that  they  are  able  to 
communicate  the  same  perception  to  others. 

The  artistic  instinct  of  all  other  people — 
and  hardly  any  one  is  without  it — has  its  own 
proper  and  infinite  sphere,  in  which  the  con- 
duct of  life  itself  may  become  a  great  and  noble 
exercise  of  art.  And  what  is  true  of  art  is 
also  true  of  pleasure.  Special  "entertain- 
ments" may  become  limited  more  and  more 
to  the  great  popular  festivals  and  the  highest 
artistic  gratifications. 

But  so  long  as  labour  uses  up  the  powers  of 
the  majority;  so  long  as  leisure  is  lacking  for 
personal  exercise  of  energy  in  the  way  of  re- 


Recreative  Culture  185 

creation;  so  long  as  innumerable  things  still 
distort  and  disfigure  existence — so  long  will 
recreations  remain  a  necessary  of  life  in  the 
ordinary  acceptance  of  the  term.  And  there- 
with recreative  culture  becomes  a  crying 
need,  in  order  that  this  claim  may  be  satisfied 
in  a  healthy  and  becoming  way.  Then  slowly 
but  surely  a  race  will  be  formed,  to  which 
working  days  and  holidays  alike,  from  the 
awakening  with  the  morning  light  to  falling 
asleep  under  the  stars,  will  be  full  of  pleasures 
reverently  enjoyed. 

To  those  who  scoff  at  these  "fancies,  impos- 
sible of  realisation  in  an  imperfect  world," 
I  will  reply  in  the  words  of  a  great  and  true 
saying: 

Where  there  is  no  vision  the  people  perish. 

No  dream,  however  great,  has  ever  injured 
a  nation  or  a  class.  Dreaming  is  only  harmful 
when  it  is  indulged  in  at  the  expense  of  action, 
or  when  it  is  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the 
laws  of  existence. 

Only  those  who  have  not  perceived  that 
precisely  humanity 's  will  to  perfect  itself  is  the 
highest  law  of  earthly  life  can  despair  of  a 
more  perfect  humanity. 


1 86         The  Younger  Generation 

The  final  goal  of  this  perfecting  we  do  not 
know,  nor  do  we  need  to  know  it.  We  know 
that  we  possess  the  perfecting  instinct  and 
that  we  have  accomplished  the  task  laid  upon 
us  in  the  scheme  of  the  universe  by  this  in- 
stinct, when  all  the  best  possibilities  of  our 
nature  have  co-operated  with  this,  the  highest 
of  all  our  incentives. 


VIII 

THE  FEW  AND   THE  MANY 


187 


VIII 

THE  FEW  AND  THE  MANY 

I.     Introduction.     Egoism  and  Fellow- Feeling 

'T'HE  kernel  of  the  history  of  human  develop- 
*  ment  is  the  interaction  of  egoism  and 
fellow-feeling. 

At  certain  periods  egoism  has  been  the 
stronger.  The  mere  mention  of  the  words 
"Hellenism,"  "Renaissance,"  calls  up  a  vision 
of  godlike  figures  passing  in  procession  and 
filling  the  air  with  sound  and  colour.  These 
periods  have  permanently  enriched  life  by 
their  profound,  self-centred  sense  of  life  and 
surging  creative  joy. 

At  other  periods  fellow-feeling  has  been 
predominant.  Not  the  good  fortune  of  the  in- 
dividual, but  the  sufferings  of  the  many,  have 
occupied  the  minds  of  thinkers.  Periods  of 
powerful  conflict  arise,  when  both  egoism  and 
fellow-feeling  have  found  forcible  expression. 

Our  time  is  one  of  these.     On  the  one  hand 
189 


The  Younger  Generation 

we  have  a  Tolstoy,  whose  fellow-feeling  led 
him  to  a  remedy  for  human  suffering  which 
in  its  extreme  is  an  annihilation  of  individual- 
ity, as  in  the  Buddhist  ideal  of  Nirvana.  Even 
the  remnant  of  individualism  preserved  by 
Christianity,  namely  the  hope  of  salvation, 
is  of  no  importance  to  Tolstoy,  He  only 
desires  the  establishment  of  that  kingdom  of 
God  upon  earth  which  was  preached  by  the 
prophets  of  Israel  and  by  Christianity.  And 
he  believes  that  this  kingdom  can  be  reached 
by  a  full  realisation  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus, 
with  a  selflessness  so  complete  that  it  finally 
results  in  the  extinction  of  the  race,  and  by  a 
return  to  primitive  conditions  so  thorough 
that  it  finally  results  in  the  destruction  of 
civilisation. 

In  his  condemnation  of  the  State  and  of  laws 
Tolstoy  is  in  complete  agreement  with  anarch- 
ism, whose  temporary  weapon,  violence,  he, 
however,  unconditionally  abhors.  Anarchism 
also  had  dreams  of  the  millennium,  but  dreams 
of  a  more  beautiful  and  spiritual  kind  than 
Tolstoy's.  Its  hope  is  to  unite  the  need  of 
social  reform  with  individualism,  the  feeling 
of  fraternity  with  cultural  development,  in  a 
state  of  things  in  which  laws  and  armies, 
property  and  government  shall  have  disap- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          191 

peared,  and  every  one  shall  be  able  to  follow 
his  then  purified  impulses.  Only  thus  will 
personality  freely  find  expression  in  religion 
and  science,  in  art  and  poetry,  in  work  and 
repose.  Krapotkin  is  in  our  time  the  purest 
and  most  eminent  champion  of  this  anarchism. 

As  often  happens,  the  extreme  Left,  Tolstoy 
and  anarchism,  meets  with  the  extreme  Right, 
individualism.  The  latter  has  in  our  time 
maintained  the  right  of  egoism  in  the  face  of 
fellow-feeling  in  a  way  that  has  never  been 
seen  before.  And  just  as  fellow-feeling  found 
its  great,  personal  spokesman  in  Tolstoy,  so 
has  egoism  been  voiced  by  Nietzsche.  This 
mighty  genius — as  every  one  now  knows — 
glorified  individualism  and  the  great  person- 
ality with  a  Will  to  Power  so  strong,  with  an 
absorption  in  the  ego  so  intense,  that  they  led 
to  the  shattering  of  the  thinker's  own  ego. 

Individualism  has  no  dreams  of  reducing 
suffering  on  earth,  which  it  regards  as  unavoid- 
able. It  insists  only  that  we  ought  to  oppose 
the  suffering  that  would  arise,  if  the  higher 
individuals  were  prevented  from  attaining 
their  full  development  and  enjoying  full  free- 
dom for  their  personalities.  This  obstruction 
might  come  from  the  many.  Therefore  in 
order  to  prevent  these  many  from  exercising 


192         The  Younger  Generation 

pressure  on  the  few,  we  must  pitilessly  sacri- 
fice the  majority  to  the  minority.  These  few 
show  themselves  to  be  in  possession  of  the 
true  "master  nature"  precisely  in  being  able 
to  go  forward  over  the  bodies  of  the  slaves, 
whom  they  trample  underfoot  by  the  right 
of  the  stronger,  if  they  themselves  can  only 
reach  their  goal  by  so  doing. 

This  out-and-out  individualism  rejects  the 
claims  both  of  Christianity  and  liberalism  that 
they  too  represent  the  cause  of  personality. 

Christianity,  which  makes  pity  the  first  of 
duties  and  thereby  encourages  weakness  and 
incapacity;  Christianity,  which  depreciates 
genius  and  exalts  the  poor  in  spirit;  which 
commends  servility  in  the  name  of  humility 
and  makes  self-obliteration  its  highest  aim, 
is  not  able  to  develop  free  and  noble  spirits. 
On  the  contrary,  through  its  doctrine  of 
fraternity  and  the  eternal  value  of  every  soul, 
it  has  opened  the  way  to  liberalism's  demo- 
cratisation  of  social  relations.  This  democra- 
tisation  went  with  the  Puritans  to  America, 
and  from  there  came  to  Europe,  where,  since 
1789,  the  mill-stones  of  equality  and  frater- 
nity have  crushed  personality  between  them. 
Since  that  time  everything  individual  has  been 
levelled  down  by  something  "universal":  in- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          193 

telligence  by  universal  education;  character  by 
universal  suffrage ;  art  by  universal  mechanical 
processes;  nationality  by  universal  brother- 
hood. Everywhere  the  universal  effort,  ac- 
cording to  Nietzsche,  is  "with  the  least  possible 
force  to  arrive  at  the  greatest  possible  stupid- 
ity." And,  in  the  opinion  of  individualists, 
the  immediate  result  of  the  levelling  work  of 
Christianity  and  liberalism  is  socialism. 

This  again  demands  of  the  individual  the 
most  extreme  self-renunciation,  that  of  no 
longer  possessing  property.  And  it  demands 
this  renunciation  on  the  part  of  the  few  for 
the  sake  of  the  many,  of  humanity.  It 
everywhere  opposes  what  is  peculiar,  what  is 
characteristic,  egoism.  If  it  is  victorious, 
the  few  will  be  sacrificed  to  the  many,  the 
masters  to  the  slaves;  "herd-humanity"  will 
trample  the  supermen  under  its  bestial  hoofs. 

In  certain  of  the  programmes  of  socialism, 
out-and-out  individualism  has,  it  is  true, 
found  its  extreme  opposite. 

These  two  extremes — of  self-esteem  on  the 
one  hand  and  self-renunciation  on  the  other — 
deserve  the  closest  attention,  just  because  they 
are  extremes.  For  we  may  be  sure  that,  when 
each  of  them  has  worked  out  its  extreme  con- 
sequences, development  will  appropriate  and 
13 


194         The  Younger  Generation 

preserve  what  each  has  most  profoundly  justi- 
fied. Any  outcome  of  the  struggle,  which  left 
one  of  them  the  victor,  would  bring  develop- 
ment into  a  bypath,  and  we  should  be  forced 
to  go  back  and  fetch  the  vanquished  one. 

2.     Social    Utopias  and  the  Position  of  the 
Social  Question  in  our  Day 

Even  at  the  beginning  of  the  i88o's,  social- 
ism was  little  feared,  only  ridiculed.  All  that 
some  so-called  "statesmen"  knew  about  it 
was  that  a  socialist  had  said  that  "property  is 
theft."  Occasionally  they  went  so  far  in  their 
thoroughness  as  to  prove  that  if — "as  the 
socialists  desired" — everything  were  equally 
divided  to-day,  by  to-morrow  inequality  would 
have  reappeared!  Sometimes,  again,  it  was 
explained  that  the  demands  of  socialism  were 
extremely  ancient,  and  that  this  was  the  best 
proof  of  their  unreasonableness. 

However  it  may  be  with  their  irrationality, 
their  antiquity  is  incontestable.  The  prophets 
of  the  Old  Testament  already  had  visions  of 
justice,  which  like  a  mighty  stream  was  to 
overwhelm  those  who  oppress  the  poor.1  In 

1  See,  for  example,  Amos,  c.  2  and  5,  and  in  Isaiah,  c.  5  (and 
elsewhere),  the  description  of  contemporary  conditions,  or  (in 
Pseudo-Isaiah)  the  visions  of  the  future  in  c.  65. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          195 

the  same  spirit  spoke  Jesus  and  the  oldest 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  using  expressions  so 
violent  that  they  can  be  compared  only  with 
those  of  the  most  extreme  socialism.  In  the 
first  centuries  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  called 
the  earth  the  common  property  of  all;  they 
saw  in  riches  the  source  of  the  greatest  human 
injustice;  the  rich  were  called  thieves  and  the 
inheritors  of  thieves;  no  one  ought  to  own 
more  than  was  sufficient  for  his  needs,  all  the 
rest  was  to  be  given  to  those  who  had  nothing. 
When  the  rich  made  private  property  of  what 
God  had  made  common  to  all,  they  were 
murderers;  the  few  had  taken  for  themselves 
the  inheritance  of  all,  namely  the  common 
gifts  of  nature;  common  property  was  the 
will  of  God,  private  ownership  was  a  violation 
of  that  will. 

Genuine  Christianity,  of  the  revival  of 
which  we  now  hear  so  much,  is  expressed  in 
part  by  what  is  quoted  above.  And  in  all 
periods  during  which  this  genuine  Christianity 
again  becomes  living,  the  words  of  Christ  to 
the  young  man,  who  asked  him  how  he  might 
be  saved — "  Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  give 
to  the  poor  " — have  once  more  become  a  re- 
proachful exhortation  in  the  minds  of  men. 
The  Christian  doctrine  of  brotherhood  and  the 


196         The  Younger  Generation 

Jewish  doctrine  of  justice  have  then  acquired 
a  revolutionary  force.  But  the  opponents  of 
this  force  and  its  communistic  claims  have 
hastened  to  use  not  only  the  sword  of  civil 
order,  but  also  the  cross  of  the  Christian 
religion  against  it. 

For  Christianity  on  this  point  is  divided 
against  itself.  It  has  inherited  the  Jewish 
ideal  of  justice,  but  side  by  side  with  this  it 
has  its  own  new  ideal,  that  of  human  immor- 
tality. Christianity's  greatest  power  over 
men's  minds  rests  upon  the  fact  that  it  has 
not  only  given  consolation  in  suffering,  which 
is  the  experience  of  all  mankind,  but  has  done 
more — given  a  meaning  and  a  sanctity  to  this 
experience.  The  symbol  of  Christianity  was 
the  cross,  the  story  of  the  passion  became  the 
central  point  of  its  doctrine,  poverty  and  sad- 
ness on  earth  were  the  basis  of  the  hope  of 
bliss  in  heaven.  The  effort  to  improve  our 
earthly  condition,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
looked  upon  as  a  manifestation  of  the  worldly 
mind;  it  is  as  a  vale  of  tears  that  the  earth 
becomes  a  preparation  for  the  joys  of  eternity. 
Nay,  Christianity  in  the  same  breath  enjoins 
on  us  charity  towards  the  suffering,  and 
patience  when  we  ourselves  suffer. 

Most  of  the  interpreters  of  Christianity  have 


The  Few  and  the  Many          197 

thus  taken  the  substance  out  of  the  most 
unambiguous  words  of  Jesus  as  to  what  is 
demanded  by  love  of  one's  neighbour;  indeed, 
one  may  even  hear  Christians  speak  scorn- 
fully of  those  who  insist  on  the  full  import  of 
Jesus'  claims  on  neighbour-love.  They  think, 
these  profound  Christians,  that  quite  different 
and  greater  sacrifices  were  demanded  than 
the  divison  of  loaves  of  bread.  It  is  true 
enough  that  there  are  sacrifices  that  touch 
the  personality  far  more  nearly.  But  this 
ought  surely  not  to  prevent  these  Christians 
from  also  fulfilling  the  commands  of  Jesus, 
regarded  by  them  as  so  easy,  among  which 
the  division  of  all  their  property  to  the  poor  is 
undeniably  one  to  which  Jesus  himself  at- 
tached no  small  importance.  For  according 
to  him  "to  love  one's  neighbour  as  one's  self" 
is  only  a  figure  of  speech,  unless  it  involves 
allowing  one's  neighbour  a  full  share  of  all  one 
needs  and  desires  for  one's  self. 

But  not  only  in  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
world  of  ideas  do  we  find  the  antecedents  of 
socialism.  In  Hellas  it  was  Plato  who  pro- 
phesied of  a  state  of  things  in  which  the  "two 
nations,  rich  and  poor,"  would  become  one 
nation.  The  Renaissance  also  had  its  glowing 
Utopias,  and  the  second  Renaissance,  the 


198         The  Younger  Generation 

Goethe  period,  had  one  in  Heine's  glorious 
Ardinghello  or  the  Happy  Isles.1 

Even  in  those  periods  in  which  egoism  has 
been  strongest,  such  spirits  as  have  been  dis- 
turbed in  their  own  harmony  by  the  discord 
surrounding  them,  or  have  been  seized  by 
fellow-feeling  for  the  suffering,  have  begun 
to  dream  dreams. 

And  all  these  dreams,  as  well  as  the  antiquity 
of  them — what  is  it  that  they  prove? 

That  humanity  bears  within  itself  an  ideal 
of  happiness  and  an  ideal  of  justice,  which  it 
seeks  to  approach;  that  the  Utopias  are  one 
expression  of  these  ideal  claims,  which  appear 
again  and  again  in  new  forms  and  compel  the 
gradual  transformation  of  social  conditions, 
which  must  be  continued  until  we  have  arrived 
at  a  state  of  things  which  provides  the  out- 
ward conditions  of  happiness  for  all. 

While  the  demands  for  social  reform  are 
very  ancient,  the  position  of  the  social  question 
in  our  time  is,  on  the  other  hand,  new. 

Every  great  idea  has  the  same  history  as 
the  Parsifal  of  the  mediaeval  legend,  whose 
mother  brought  him  up  in  solitude  and,  on  the 
day  when  he  wished  to  go  out  into  the  world, 

1  Closely  akin  to  the  Utopias  of  the  Renaissance  is  William 
Morris's  News  from  Nowhere. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          199 

put  on  him  the  dress  of  a  fool,  which  in  the 
course  of  his  conflicts  he  finally  exchanged  for 
the  trappings  of  victory.  Socialism  is  another 
such  child  of  the  age,  which  under  conflict 
has  doffed  the  cap  and  bells. 

Socialism  now  confronts  us  in  every  news- 
paper and  review;  in  the  theatre  and  in  Par- 
liament; in  the  Vatican — under  Leo  XIII. — 
and  in  the  French  Academy.  Many  distin- 
guished men  within  the  Catholic  Church  have 
embraced  the  ideas  of  socialism  as  regards  the 
reform  of  society.  The  Catholic  priest  is 
better  prepared  than  the  Protestant  clergyman 
to  recognise  the  connection  between  the  social 
question  and  Christianity.  For  through  celi- 
bacy the  former  is  more  easily  liberated  from 
worldly  interests,  and  through  administering 
the  relief  of  the  poor  he  is  brought  nearer  to 
the  enigma  of  hunger.  But  Christians  of  all 
denominations  fear  socialism  when  it  comes 
to  the  transformation  of  religious  opinions. 
For  while,  on  the  one  hand,  socialism  finds 
support  in  the  Christian  sense  of  fraternity 
and  justice,  it  brings  at  the  same  time  the 
above-mentioned  charge  against  Christianity 
— that  its  preaching  of  patience  and  renuncia- 
tion, of  unselfishness  and  unworldliness,  stands 
in  the  way  of  a  really  powerful  desire  of  reform 


200         The  Younger  Generation 

where  the  incongruities  of  earthly  life  are  con- 
cerned. And  in  addition  to  this  there  is  the 
whole  trust  in  providence  that  Jesus  recom- 
mends— to  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow, 
to  imitate  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the  lilies 
of  the  field — an  idealism  which,  when  it  is 
genuine,  must  make  Christians  indifferent 
towards  economic  questions  of  every  kind. 

The  Social  Democracy  hopes  for  much, 
though  far  from  everything,  from  the  feeling 
of  fraternity  to  which  the  Christians  and 
Tolstoy  appeal.  The  Social  Democracy  knows 
that  in  its  essence  it  is  the  liberation  of  the 
strongest  "Will  to  Power"  that  the  history 
of  the  world  has  yet  seen — that  of  the  fourth 
estate.  The  liberation  of  this  will  has  been 
promoted  in  the  first  place  by  the  greater 
equality  in  civil  rights  and  education  that 
resulted  from  the  French  Revolution.  For 
increased  civil  equality  has  caused  economic 
inequality  to  seem  more  unbearable  to  the 
lower  classes.  In  the  next  place,  these  lower 
classes  have  been  steadily  increased  owing  to 
the  existing  conditions  of  production  forcing 
one  stratum  after  another  of  the  upper  classes 
down  to  an  inferior  economic  standpoint. 
And  these  elements — which  bring  with  them 
better  education  and  greater  claims  on  life — 


The  Few  and  the  Many          201 

strengthen  the  discontent  of  the  proletariat 
with  the  existing  state  of  things. 

To  intensify  this  discontent  has  been  the 
task — often  unwisely  performed,  but  necessary 
— of  social  agitation.  And  the  number  of 
those  is  ever  increasing  who  acknowledge  that 
"the  disparity  between  our  external  circum- 
stances and  the  needs  of  civilised  life  is  one 
of  the  deepest  causes  of  the  melancholy  of 
the  present  day";  and  who  perceive  that  "the 
satisfied  sit  still  and  do  nothing,  whereas  the 
dissatisfied  are  the  world's  only  benefactors." 

As  the  fourth  estate's  "will  to  power"  is  now 
once  for  all  set  free,  it  is  bound  by  the  laws  of 
nature  to  reach  its  goal.  A  French  working- 
man,  who  at  a  meeting  some  years  ago  was 
speaking  about  classes,  was  interrupted  by 
the  remark  that  the  French  Revolution  had 
put  an  end  to  all  classes.  He  went  on,  how- 
ever, to  show  with  convincing  logic  that  money 
has  taken  the  place  of  privileges  in  forming 
class  distinctions;  nay,  that  the  amount  of 
liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  a  man  ac- 
tually enjoys,  depends  to  a  great  extent  on  his 
means. 

The  increase  of  population,  the  growth  of 
mechanical  production,  the  rise  of  competition 
in  the  field  of  labour,  intensify  year  by  year 


202         The  Younger  Generation 

that  struggle  of  all  against  all  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  existing  economic  conditions. 
The  larger  capitalists  swallow  up  the  smaller, 
and  the  latter  therefore  combine  more  and 
more  into  great  companies,  which  make  pro- 
duction and  distribution  collective.  Among 
the  wow-collective  agriculturists — those  work- 
ing with  small  capital, — or  small  manufac- 
turers and  retailers,  or  literary  men  and  artists, 
and  others,  the  existing  state  of  things  claims 
daily  victims.  And  these  victims,  as  well  as 
every  new  trust,  every  new  company,  every 
business  crisis,  every  fight  between  free  trade 
and  protection,  all  witness  to  the  social  trans- 
formation which  is  taking  place  by  a  regular 
process  of  evolution. 

This  transformation  socialism  seeks  to  carry 
out  logically.  Only  in  this  way  do  socialists 
believe  they  will  be  able  to  change  the  con- 
ditions of  life  of  the  great  majority,  which  is 
condemned  by  the  present  system  to  destruc- 
tion or  to  an  unalterable  subjection. 

It  is  this  inevitable  transformation  to  which 
liberalism — its  eyes  bandaged  with  the  tri- 
colour— is  blind. 

Liberalism  and  socialism,  both  children  of 
the  French  Revolution,  regard  each  other 
with  that  mutual  resentment  which  usually 


The  Few  and  the  Many          203 

results  when  the  elder  brother  has  received 
practically  the  whole  inheritance. 

Liberalism,  the  elder  brother,  assumes  a 
haughty  attitude  towards  the  younger.  But 
this  does  not  prevent  liberalism  from  being 
constantly  forced  to  preserve  its  power  by 
concessions  to  the  demands  which — whenever 
they  have  been  first  put  forward  by  socialism 
— have  been  called  "infringements  of  personal 
liberty."  In  this  connection  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  recall  the  normal  working  day,  work- 
men's compensation,  old-age  insurance,  and 
the  regulation  of  female  and  child  labour. 
But  in  making  these  concessions  liberals  insist 
that  their  object  is  to  prevent  the  final  trans- 
formation, the  needlessness  of  which,  they  say, 
will  become  apparent  when  all  these  partial 
reforms  have  taken  place.  And  in  order  to 
hinder  the  final  transformation  they  show  the 
same  tendency  in  practical  politics  as  did  the 
corresponding  "liberals"  of  the  eighteenth 
century — of  doing  everything  for  the  people, 
but  nothing  through  the  people  themselves. 

Meanwhile  liberalism  is  becoming  more  and 
more  hybrid.  It  becomes  so,  on  the  one  hand, 
through  being  forced  to  adopt  more  and  more 
of  the  claims  of  socialism  in  its  programme; 
on  the  other,  through  assuming  a  more  and 


204         The  Younger  Generation 

more  conservative  attitude  towards  existing 
conditions.  Now,  however,  as  a  hundred  years 
ago,  the  only  proof  of  true  liberalism  is  being 
able  to  liberate  one's  self  from  the  prejudices 
peculiar  to  one's  own  time — not  from  those  of 
another  age. 

The  truly  liberal-minded  man  is  no  more 
frightened  now  than  he  was  during  the  French 
Revolution,  at  seeing  the  waves  of  the  time 
wash  up  bodies  and  wreckage.  He  does  not 
stand  on  the  beach,  wringing  his  hands  and 
cursing  the  sea,  the  life-giving  sea,  without 
which  men  would  not  be  able  to  live  and 
breathe  on  the  dry  land. 

"Now  are  we  frightened,"  say  these  so- 
called  liberals,  "by  a  shipwreck  or  two.  It 
is  only  the  inundations  of  the  sea,  not  its 
movement,  that  we  hope  to  prevent.  For  if 
the  waves  of  socialism  are  allowed  to  rise, 
they  will  wash  away  all  the  liberties  we  have 
laboriously  won,  all  the  best  culture  humanity 
has  acquired.  We  do  not  fear  the  awakening 
of  the  fourth  estate,  but  its  social-democratisa- 
tion  of  society." 

With  such  apprehensions  one  is  justified  in 
building  dams.  It  is  only  what  is  justifiable 
in  these  misgivings  that  can  be  the  subject  of 
an  investigation. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          205 

3.    Liberalism  and  Socialism.     Social  and  In- 
dividual Liberty.     The  Right  to  Work 

In  their  uneasiness  liberals  have  forgotten 
that  history  has  never  shown  us  any  perma- 
nent outward  transformation  except  by  an 
inward  transformation:  that  of  men's  feelings 
and  ideas  regarding  the  values  of  life  and  the 
conditions  of  happiness.  When  no  preceding 
inward  transformation  has  taken  place,  the 
revolution  is  followed  by  a  reaction.  And 
the  knowledge  of  this  makes  the  Social  Demo- 
cracy tend  to  become  more  evolutionary 
instead  of  revolutionary,  more  unwilling  to 
force  a  new  state  of  things  upon  society. 
Liberals,  on  the  other  hand,  continue  to  as- 
sume that  the  new  conditions  would  be  im- 
posed by  coercion,  but  at  the  same  time  they 
think  that  the  members  of  society,  oppressed 
by  the  socialists,  would  be  squeezed  into  a 
homogeneous  mass,  from  which  the  social 
"State"  might  knead  whatever  forms  it 
pleased.  History  shows  us,  however,  that 
nations  have  never  behaved  as  a  mass  de- 
prived of  force  and  will,  except — during  certain 
limited  periods — before  rulers  who  based  their 
power  upon  divine  authority.  The  Israelites, 
who  did  not  acknowledge  the  divinity  of 


206         The  Younger  Generation 

Pharaoh,  organised  that  well  managed  strike 
which  is  known  as  the  deliverance  of  the 
children  of  Israel  from  the  land  of  bondage. 
With  the  small  acceptance  the  belief  in  divine 
authority  finds  in  our  day,  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  the  Social  Democracy  will  be 
able  to  rely  for  support  on  such  a  faith.  And 
thus — from  the  point  of  view  of  human  nature 
— a  reaction  is  bound  to  succeed  any  conceiv- 
able attempt  at  transformation  according  to 
a  fixed  programme.  Even  if  such  a  mis- 
fortune came  about  as  that  the  savages  of  our 
lowest  social  strata  seized  power  by  the  right 
of  the  stronger,  the  sons  of  these  savages 
would  be  found  to  react  against  their  fathers' 
encroachments  on  liberty  and  culture.  We 
may  be  as  certain  of  this  as  we  are  that  when 
real  savages  are  able  to  eat  their  fill  in  peace, 
they  begin  to  feel  impulses  towards  culture. 
Knowledge  of  this,  however,  does  not  get  rid 
of  the  fact  that  such  a  period  of  savagery,  even 
if  transitory,  would  involve  great  sufferings 
on  the  few,  without  appreciably  diminishing 
the  old  sufferings  of  the  many.  Such  a  trans- 
itional period,  therefore,  is  the  last  thing 
desired  by  thoughtful  Social  Democrats. 

But  even  when  the  liberal  is  wise  enough 
not  to  fear  so  violent  a  revolution,  he  is  ap- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          207 

prehensive  lest  the  programme  of  liberalism 
— political  self-government  and  economic 
freedom — should  be  exchanged  in  a  socialist 
State  for  State  absolutism  and  centralisation. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  grasp  how  a  despotic 
form  of  government  could  be  possible  in  a 
society  in  which  each  individual  citizen  would 
feel  that  /  am  the  State.  Would  not  every 
law,  every  branch  of  labour,  every  official 
department  then  come  into  being  through 
those  to  whom  these  laws  and  administrative 
arrangements  applied?  Only  the  old  view, 
which  sees  in  the  State  an  independent  ex- 
ternal entity,  instead  of  an  epitome  of  the 
citizens  themselves,  makes  it  possible  to  fear 
an  absolute  despotism  in  Social  Democracy. 
Every  law  or  arrangement  disapproved  by  the 
popular  will  would  infallibly  be  reformed. 
Not  the  immutability  but  the  continual 
changeableness  of  the  government  is  what  may 
be  feared  in  a  society  where  all  take  part  in 
making  laws  and  electing  administrators. 
To  counteract  this  tendency  to  change  is  the 
very  problem  that  statesmanship  will  have 
to  deal  with  in  a  socialistically  transformed 
State.  The  representation  of  minorities,  the 
irremovability  of  judges  and  certain  other 
officials,  the  complete  distinction  between 


2o8         The  Younger  Generation 

legislative,  judiciary,  and  administrative  func- 
tions assuredly  provide  some,  though  far  from 
sufficient  means  of  guarding  against  demoral- 
isation under  democratic  forms  of  society. 
Pure,  naked  democracy  has  not  unfrequently 
shown  itself  envious  or  suspicious  of  great 
personalities,  has  delighted  in  humiliating 
them,  has  been  ungrateful,  fickle,  and  domi- 
neering; sometimes  even  dishonest  and  unjust. 
There  is,  therefore,  no  thinking  person  who 
believes  that  universal  suffrage  is  a  final  goal. 
It  is  the  necessary  first  step  to  a  gradual 
transformation  of  our  whole  social  life  into 
forms,  compared  with  which  all  that  we  now 
call  representation,  parliamentarism,  adminis- 
tration, and  the  press  will  appear  as  much 
out  of  date  as  absolutism  and  the  censorship 
appear  to  us  at  the  present  day.  We  can  see 
already  how  conscientious  natures  suffer  from 
having  to  deal  with  the  press  or  parliament- 
arism, since  they  have  found  these  institutions 
swayed,  not  by  ideas,  but  by  love  of  power 
and — above  all — of  profit. 

But  since  absolutism,  not  of  the  government 
but  of  the  majority,  is  the  real  danger  of  all 
democracy,  it  follows  that  every  new  majority 
that  accidentally  has  the  power,  can  use  it  for 
making  regulations  hostile  to  liberty,  if  the 


The  Few  and  the  Many          209 

new  society  has  been  founded  upon  central- 
isation instead  of  self-government.  And  the 
socialists  know  this  very  well.  Many  of  their 
leaders  are  therefore  more  and  more  inclined 
to  abandon  the  idea  of  centralisation  in  favour 
of  self-government  within  the  different  de- 
partments of  labour,  while  they  insist  on  co- 
operation between  these  departments  only  for 
the  sake  of  the  systematic  regulation  of  all 
production.  Socialists,  like  William  Morris 
and  others,  are  more  and  more  becoming 
anarchists  on  this  point,  owing  to  the  fear  that 
State  officials — who  can  no  more  be  expected 
in  the  future  than  in  the  present  to  be  gods 
in  omniscience — may  fetter  the  freedom  both 
of  production  and  of  consumption.  If  all 
exchange  and  all  production  were  to  be  regu- 
lated in  detail  by  the  State,  it  is  obvious  that 
not  only  would  individual  initiative  be  fet- 
tered, but  the  needs  of  the  public  could  not 
be  satisfied  to  the  same  extent  as  now,  when 
the  trader's  business  interest  keeps  him  alive 
to  these  needs.  The  State  as  sole  employer 
without  a  competitor,  as  sole  customer  and 
sole  seller — this  hard-and-fast,  barrack-life 
idea  is  being  more  and  more  abandoned  by 
socialists  in  favour  of  that  of  a  common  State 
direction  for  the  main  features  of  production, 
14 


2io         The  Younger  Generation 

but  otherwise  self -management ;  thus,  in  every 
department,  a  democratic  foundation  with 
an  aristocratic  superstructure.  No  one  need 
wonder  at  the  word  aristocratic.  For  an 
anarchist,  management  actually  means  an 
aristocratic  one  after  a  short  time;  that  is,  a 
management  in  which  by  psychological  neces- 
sity the  most  efficient,  the  best,  as  a  rule,  come 
to  the  front. 

With  regard  to  the  different  trades  it  will 
easily  be  seen  that  it  is  not  only  important 
to  restrict  the  partial  over-production  to 
which  the  socialists  rightly  point,  but  also 
to  promote  that  class  of  production  which 
cannot  be  put  into  figures,  since  it  depends  on 
individual  initiative;  the  production  through 
which  new  forms,  new  patterns,  new  inven- 
tions make  their  appearance,  without  having 
been  foreseen,  inquired  for,  or  indicated.  And 
side  by  side  with  this  freedom  for  individual 
initiative  in  every  trade,  it  is  desirable  that 
the  manager  chosen  by  the  board  of  direction 
or  by  the  workers  themselves  should  not  be 
easily  removable,  but  should  possess  strong 
and  active  powers.  Otherwise  the  adminis- 
tration will  be  conducted  with  as  much 
waste  of  time  and  force  as  is  customary  with 
"boards,"  whereas  the  single  strong  will  can 


The  Few  and  the  Many          211 

usually    do    great    things    within    its    own 
limits. 

Of  course  there  will  then  as  now  be  the 
danger  that  a  manager  may  use  pressure. 
He  might  have  many  ways  of  attacking  a 
person  he  disliked ;  moving  him  from  one  place 
to  another,  from  a  more  leading  to  a  more 
subordinate  position,  from  a  pleasant  to  an 
unpleasant  kind  of  work.  But  it  would  not 
be  possible  to  use  any  of  these  or  similar 
means  in  so  violently  coercive  a  way  as  is 
now  done.  If  we  could  measure  the  pressure 
that  weighs  upon  every  one  who  has  to  work 
for  his  livelihood;  what  endless  precautions, 
what  cowardice,  what  slackness  and  indiffer- 
ence are  fostered  by  the  need  of  daily  bread; 
if  we  could  trace  all  the  economic  causes  of 
the  want  of  character  or  the  hopelessness  that 
succeeds  to  the  courage,  the  self-sacrifice,  the 
love  of  truth,  the  devotion,  with  which  so 
many  young  people  begin  life — we  should 
find  at  the  back  of  all  this  the  order  of  society 
which  often  brings  an  independent  man  face 
to  face  with  the  choice  between  submission 
against  his  conscience  and  loss  of  his  means 
of  livelihood.  And  this  social  order  is  not 
favourable  to  that  development  of  the  indi- 
viduality, about  which  people  are  always  so 


212         The  Younger  Generation 

scrupulous  when  socialism  is  mentioned.  This 
order  is  hostile  to  the  individuality  in  a  far 
greater  degree  than  a  social  arrangement 
could  be,  whose  first  principle  was: 

Nobody  can  be  made  out-of-work. 

With  this  "  Magna  Charta"  personal  liberty 
would  have  made  the  greatest  step  in  advance 
that  had  ever  been  made  since  protection  of 
life  and  property  was  recognised  as  social 
rights.  For  at  bottom  protection  of  life  and 
property  is  not  fully  operative  when  a  man 
can  be  made  out-of-work.  And  liberty  of 
conscience  and  of  thought  does  not  exist  in 
reality  when — on  account  of  his  words  and 
thoughts,  his  belief  or  non-belief — a  man  may 
lose  the  livelihood  of  himself  and  his  family. 

4.  Can  the  Independence  of  the  Individual  be 
Maintained  in  a  Socialistic  Society? 

In  order  that  every  one  may  enjoy  the  right 
to  work,  the  socialists,  as  is  now  known,  con- 
sider that  certain  members  of  society — the 
owners  of  the  means  of  production — must 
resign  this  private  ownership.  How  and 
whether  socialism  will  be  able  to  abolish  the 
right  of  private  property  in  the  means  of 


The  Few  and  the  Many          213 

production;  how  and  whether  it  will  then  be 
able  to  provide  work  for  all;  how  and  whether 
it  will  succeed  in  so  arranging  collective  pro- 
duction that  it  will  continue  to  grow — all  this 
belongs  to  the  national-economic  side  of  the 
question.  Into  this  I  do  not  enter,  since  I  do 
not  understand  it.  And  even  were  I  to  do  so, 
I  consider  it  scarcely  possible  to  discuss  this 
side  of  the  question.  For  in  these  matters 
there  are  many  different  schools  of  socialism, 
and  in  every  country  appears  the  differentia- 
tion indicated  above,  which  is  one  of  the  signs 
of  development.  New  proposals  are  con- 
stantly being  formulated,  concerning  which 
one  can  be  sure  of  only  one  thing:  that  they 
will  never  be  carried  out  in  their  entirety. 
Programmes  of  the  future  have  no  other  sig- 
nificance than  that  of  the  scaffolding  round  a 
house.  It  helps  the  builders  in  their  work, 
but  is  pulled  down  when  the  house  is  finished. 
And  the  building  will  be  nothing  like  its 
scaffolding. 

As  regards  the  shape  that  future  conditions 
will  take,  there  is  now  only  one  thing  certain 
among  evolutionary  socialists :  that  the  social- 
istic "State  of  the  future"  cannot  come  into 
being  in  its  entirety.  They  know  that  we 
must  "keep  the  sky  in  view  in  order  to  reach 


214         The  Younger  Generation 

the  brow  of  the  hill."  They  recognise  that 
much  of  the  present  order  of  things  will  be 
found  applicable  as  a  form,  when  its  meaning 
has  been  changed.  They  understand  that 
this  new  meaning  will  no  doubt  come  into 
being  partly  by  altered  conditions,  but  above 
all  by  growth  from  within,  out  of  the  old 
conditions.  They  do  not  believe  in  a  total 
reconstruction,  and  with  reason.  For  how- 
ever longingly  each  new  generation  turns  its 
eyes  towards  "the  land  of  the  future" — no 
human  foot  ever  yet  trod  its  soil.  A  hundred 
years  ago  the  revolutionaries  then  striving 
and  suffering  believed  that  we — in  the  end 
of  the  following  century — should  be  living 
happily  in  the  land  of  the  future;  just  as  we 
now  hope  that  those  who  follow  us  will  be 
happy,  whereas  they  will  certainly  be  occupied 
by  new  sufferings,  mistakes,  and  demands  of 
reform.  But  we  know  that,  even  if  each  new 
generation  has  fresh  tasks  and  in  more  than 
one  case  has  to  do  again  the  work  of  preceding 
reforms,  yet  these  reforms  have  always  left 
behind  certain  indestructible  results.  Thus 
the  privileges  of  the  nobility  as  they  existed 
before  1789  are  now  for  ever  impossible.  And 
thus  some  day  the  privileges  of  capitalists 
will  be  made  impossible,  through  a  social 


The  Few  and  the  Many          215 

transformation  which  in  other  respects  will 
perhaps  undergo  similar  modifications  to  those 
of  the  reforms  of  1789.  The  position  of  the 
mature  socialist  towards  the  State  of  the  future 
has  been  expressed  by  Georg  von  Vollmar  in 
the  following  simile: 

"He  who  would  make  new  roads  in  society, 
meets  with  the  same  experience  as  the  bold 
pioneer  in  unexplored  regions.  The  latter 
knows  that  he  must  leave  the  lowlands  and 
sees  in  the  distance  the  high  plateau  over 
which  he  is  to  build  his  road.  But  whether 
its  course  will  be  straight  or  zigzag,  its  gradi- 
ents easy  or  steep,  or  at  what  point  it  will  reach 
the  heights — all  this  he  cannot  know  before- 
hand. He  must  examine  the  ground  step  by 
step,  and  in  doing  so  he  will  always  be  coming 
upon  something  new  which  will  cause  him  to 
alter  his  plans.  But  he  must  never  keep  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  small  piece  of  ground  that 
lies  immediately  in  front  of  him;  by  doing  so 
he  would  get  on  no  better  than  if  he  tried  to 
build  his  road  straight  through  the  air.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  keeps  the  continuity  in 
view  and  fixes  his  eyes  on  the  goal,  his  work 
will  be  accomplished.  In  many  ways  it  will 
turn  out  differently  from  his  original  idea. 
Nor  will  the  height  he  has  reached  prove  to  be 


216         The  Younger  Generation 

the  last,  but  before  him  new  heights  will  rise, 
and  new  prospects,  hitherto  unsuspected, 
will  open  out.  But  along  his  road  men  will 
have  made  a  certain  advance;  and  thus  the 
road-builder  will  not  have  worked  in  vain." 

There  is  only  one  thing  of  which  we  may  be 
absolutely  certain,  and  that  is,  that  whatever 
changes  may  be  made  in  the  programmes  for 
the  solution  of  the  social  question  and  however 
socialism  may  be  transformed — a  transforma- 
tion that  takes  place  with  psychological  ne- 
cessity, the  more  socialism  leaves  the  simple 
homogeneous  phase  of  agitation  and  becomes 
complicated  and  differentiated  under  contact 
with  reality — the  social  question  will  always 
be  with  us,  until  a  solution  of  it  has  been  found 
for  the  few  as  well  as  for  the  many. 

My  argument  in  the  following  pages  will 
start  from  the  assumption  that  for  the  present 
a  solution  of  the  social  problem  has  been 
found  in  a  reform  based  in  its  main  features 
on  the  demands  of  socialism.  And  it  is  with 
this  assumption  that  I  will  mention  some  of  the 
points  of  view  from  which  we  have  reason  to 
hope  that  individuality  will  be  more  favoured 
in  a  society  so  transformed,  as  well  as  some 
points  of  view  from  which  the  contrary  may 
be  feared. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          217 

The  possibility  of  the  suppression  of  indi- 
viduality by  socialism  has  been  to  me,  as  to 
many  others,  the  great  and  valid  objection 
to  socialism.  Unless  it  can  have  the  same, 
nay,  a  much  greater  regard  for  the  interests  of 
individuality  than  existing  society,  the  social- 
istic society  will  not  be  permanent.  Before 
we  thus  find  cause  for  deciding  our  attitude  to 
the  work  of  social  reform,  we  must  make  clear 
to  ourselves  the  mutual  relation  of  individual- 
ism and  socialism.  If,  for  instance,  we  assume 
that  the  right  of  private  ownership  of  the 
means  of  production  is  the  essential  condition 
of  individual  development,  then  socialism  is 
at  once  put  out  of  court.  But  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  consider  how  few  among  significant 
personalities  have  been  owners  of  the  means 
of  production,  we  must  immediately  say  to 
ourselves  that  the  great  number  of  those  who 
have  not  owned  these  means  proves  their 
unessentiality  to  the  development  of  person- 
ality in  a  far  greater  degree  than  the  fact  of 
one  or  two  landlords  or  manufacturers  having 
attained  by  their  help  a  fine  personal  develop- 
ment proves  the  contrary.  If  this  is  reassur- 
ing even  now  to  the  many  who,  lacking  the 
means  of  production,  would  otherwise  be 
condemned  to  an  undeveloped  individuality, 


218         The  Younger  Generation 

then  it  may  also  reassure  us  with  regard  to 
the  future.  In  speaking  of  the  rights  of 
property,  I  will  here  only  recall  the  fact  that 
society  has  time  after  time  claimed  similar 
restrictions  to  those  now  demanded  by  social- 
ism, restrictions  of  the  liberties  of  some,  when 
these  have  proved  incompatible  with  the 
liberty  of  all.  Nothing  is  more  significant  in 
this  respect  than  the  case  in  which  the  sense 
of  ownership  was  at  least  as  deeply  grounded 
in  human  nature  as  it  is  where  property  in  the 
means  of  production  is  concerned ;  I  mean  the 
father's  right  of  property  in  his  children. 
That  part  of  this  right  which  implies  the 
liberty  of  the  father  to  kill,  sell,  illtreat,  and 
marry  off  his  children,  or  to  let  them  grow  up 
ignorant,  has  been  taken  away  from  him  step 
by  step  by  society.  And  it  is  certain  that 
each  time  the  fathers  have  felt  their  liberty 
to  be  violated  by  this  interference  of  the  law 
with  the  "sacredness  of  private  property." 
Now,  on  the  other  hand,  every  one  sees  that 
this  interference  has  contributed  to  develop 
the  relations  between  father  and  children  into 
the  rich  and  personal  connection  that  we  often 
see  in  modern  life. 

At  each  such  limitation  of  freedom,  how- 
ever, it  must  be  made  a  condition  that  it 


The  Few  and  the  Many          219 

promotes  a  more  essential  liberty,  by  restrict- 
ing a  less  essential  one.  No  other  restriction 
of  liberty  can  or  ought  to  be  tolerated.  And 
unless  the  socialists  provide  a  fully  adequate 
compensation  for  the  freedom  they  propose 
to  abolish,  they  cannot  count  upon  a  long 
duration  for  their  reforms. 

The  strength  of  the  socialist  faith,  however, 
rests  precisely  upon  the  certainty  of  being 
able  to  provide  this  adequate  compensation. 

5.     The  Adaptation  of  Egoism  to  a  Society 
Socialistically  Transformed 

The  socialist's  train  of  thought  is  this: 
Now  the  many  are  dependent  on  the  few,  the 
workers  on  the  owners  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction. The  majority  work  as  wage-earners 
of  the  State  or  of  private  persons;  in  both 
cases  the  employer  retains  the  greater  part  of 
what  these  wage-earners  produce.  They  thus 
keep  the  wage-earners  down  to  a  minimum  of 
subsistence,  which  is  proportionate  neither 
to  their  physical  nor  their  intellectual  needs, 
so  long  as  they  are  capable  of  work.  When 
they  cease  to  be  so,  owing  to  illness  or  age, 
they  are  faced  by  complete  destitution  or 
dependence  on  charity.  When,  on  the  other 


22O         The  Younger  Generation 

hand,  all  become  partners  and  fellow-workers 
in  a  common  production,  their  ample  wage, 
their  certainty  of  wanting  neither  work  nor 
provision  for  sickness  and  old  age,  and  the 
consciousness  of  working  one  for  all  and  all 
for  one,  will  foster  a  much  stronger  sense  of 
responsibility  and  honour  than  now  exists. 
And  this  sense,  together  with  man's  natural 
need  of  work,  when  it  is  moderate  and  well 
paid,  must  increase  the  love  of  work.  The 
extent  and  the  value  of  production  will  be 
greatly  multiplied  compared  with  the  present, 
for  it  is  now  stimulated  only  by  a  minority's 
hope  of  profit,  while  the  majority  knows  that 
it  is  condemned  to  lifelong,  hopeless  drudgery. 
But  this  is  not  all ;  the  enhanced  sense  of  life, 
which  accompanies  better  conditions  of  exist- 
ence and  increased  intellectual  development, 
will  have  a  liberating  effect  on  the  personality. 
The  assumptions  of  socialism  in  the  present, 
as  in  other  cases,  rest  upon  the  experience 
that  feelings  can  be  transformed.  This  ap- 
plies in  particular  to  the  feelings  of  those  who 
now  represent  ability  and  talent  in  different 
departments.  These  must  learn  to  find  their 
pleasure  in  activity  for  the  whole  community 
instead  of  for  their  private  profit.  And  such 
a  transformation  of  feeling  is  not  unthinkable. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          221 

Thus,  for  instance,  the  warlike  spirit  is  trans- 
formed during  long  periods  of  peace.  Other 
equally  profound  instincts  have  changed  in 
connection  with  a  changed  view  of  the  values 
of  life.  And  such  a  new  view  is  incontestably 
in  process  of  formation;  a  view  which  may 
result  in  a  complete  metamorphosis  of  the 
desire  of  profit. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  matter. 
The  desire  of  profit  usually  has  a  deeper  cause 
than  profit  alone.  It  is  not  only  possession 
that  satisfies,  but  the  effort  itself;  nay,  often 
the  effort  more  than  the  possession.  For  the 
effort  enhances  the  sense  of  power,  and  in  this 
happiness  has  its  origin.  Profit,  moreover, 
has  its  great  psychological  significance  as  a 
measure  of  our  expenditure  of  force,  as  an 
expression  of  our  success  or  failure. 

Those  on  whose  efficiency,  inventiveness, 
mental  work,  and  creative  power  it  finally 
depends  that  culture  shall  not  perish  and 
the  hard  struggle  with  nature  begin  again, 
must  acquire  a  new  measure  of  the  success 
of  their  efforts,  if  profit  is  no  longer  to  ful- 
fil that  function.  And  that  other  measures 
exist  is  all  the  more  evident,  as  even  now 
the  creators  themselves  seldom  become  rich 
through  their  inventions,  works  of  art,  and 


222         The  Younger  Generation 

books,  but  still  their  creative  joy  is  not 
diminished. 

Just  as  the  individual  expresses  in  the 
family  his  nature  as  a  member  of  the  race,  so 
does  he  express  in  work  his  nature  as  a  member 
of  society.  In  both  spheres  the  demands  of 
personality  are  freedom  in  the  choice  of  what 
one  loves;  permanence  of  the  relation,  so  that 
one  is  not  separated  by  external  agency  from 
what  one  loves ;  peace  and  the  right  to  become 
more  and  more  absorbed  in  what  one  loves. 
And  finally,  to  be  loved  back  by  the  object 
of  one's  love;  which  in  the  case  of  work  means 
that  it  smiles  upon  one  with  the  smile  of 
success.  Only  on  those  conditions  does  one 
feel  in  work  as  in  family  life  that  liberation 
of  forces,  that  rich  sense  of  life,  that  impression 
of  capability,  which  constitute  happiness. 
In  this  sense  the  "will  to  power"  is  only 
equivalent  to  the  will  to  happiness. 

The  more  highly  developed  an  individual 
is,  the  more  complicated  all  the  above-men- 
tioned conditions  of  his  happiness  become. 
And  the  more  highly  developed  an  individual 
is,  the  more  significant  is  his  happiness,  above 
all  his  happiness  in  work,  to  the  community. 
Of  the  greatest  minds,  the  creators,  this  is 
true  in  such  a  degree  that  a  social  transforma- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          223 

tion  which  deprived  a  single  such  mind  of  the 
sense  of  freedom  and  thereby  of  the  power  of 
creation,  but  gave  prosperity  to  everyday 
people,  would  finally  prove  to  be  a  misfortune 
— even  to  the  everyday  people. 

Not  every  socialist  thinker  is  conscious  of 
this  danger,  but  many  are  so.  They  have 
therefore  begun  to  abandon  the  proposition 
that  all  work  is  of  equal  value  and  that  the 
hours  of  work  are  the  only  available  standard 
of  value.  They  are  beginning  to  recognise 
that  the  hours  of  work  vary  with  different 
kinds  of  work,  different  individuals,  different 
moods  of  the  same  person,  different  work  per- 
formed by  the  same  person  in  different  phases 
of  the  development  of  the  methods  of  work; 
or  with  different  places,  so  that  the  result 
(a  building,  for  instance)  may  have  a  far 
greater  value  in  one  district  compared  with 
another — and  that  thus  the  hours  of  work 
will  not  serve  as  a  standard  of  value.  It  is 
also  beginning  to  be  acknowledged  that  every 
kind  of  work  is  not  of  equal  value  to  society. 
One  that  lasts  an  hour  (a  surgical  operation, 
for  instance),  but  saves  a  valuable  force  for 
society,  is  worth  more  than  years  of  work  of 
an  everyday  kind,  apart  from  the  fact  that 
this  one  hour's  work  is  actually  rendered  possi- 


224         The  Younger  Generation 

ble  only  by  many  years  of  preparatory  study, 
and  moreover  wears  out  the  nervous  system 
more  rapidly  than  less  straining  work,  so 
that  from  these  indirect  points  of  view  it  is 
also  worth  more.  A  number  of  socialists 
have  put  forward  similar  views  and  in  con- 
nection therewith  have  proposed  the  following 
desideratum:  That,  while  security  without 
work  should  be  reserved  only  for  children, 
invalids,  and  the  aged,  while  the  work  of  all 
ought  to.  be  rewarded  so  that  good  conditions 
of  life  may  be  obtained  by  moderate  work, 
greater  efficiency  and  a  more  valuable  kind  of 
work  ought  nevertheless  to  be  able  to  secure 
a  maximum  of  the  means  of  existence.  This, 
however,  should  never  differ  from  the  minimum 
in  such  a  proportion  as,  for  instance,  the  high- 
est and  lowest  rates  of  salary  in  our  existing 
government  departments  or  companies. 

The  strongest,  most  direct  stimulus  of  the 
working  energy  of  most  people — the  hope  of 
in  some  degree  improving  their  conditions  of 
life — would  thus  be  preserved  in  the  socialist 
community.  It  is  also  frequently  suggested 
that  property  in  such  things  as  are  not  means 
of  production  and  cannot  easily  be  made  to 
produce  interest,  might  very  well  be  retained 
and  be  hereditary.  Such  objects  are,  for 


The  Few  and  the  Many          22^ 

instance,  the  furniture,  the  books,  the  works 
of  art,  through  which  I  express  my  personality 
in  my  own  home,  or  which  I  have  learned  to 
love  in  the  home  of  my  parents.  The  possi- 
bility of  acquiring  and  keeping  such  objects, 
of  being  able  to  travel,  of  having  more  op- 
portunities for  material  and  intellectual  en- 
joyment— all  these  things  would  remain  to 
stimulate  the  effort  to  attain  efficiency. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  all  amusements  were 
made  freely  accessible,  as  is  proposed  in 
certain  socialistic  Utopias,  they  would  not 
only  lose  much  of  their  power  of  heightening 
the  sense  of  life,  but  society  would  also  lose 
a  strong  stimulus  to  work.  And  if  the  gifted 
and  capable  member  of  society  were  held 
down  to  the  same  economic  level  as  the  dull, 
lazy,  and  inapt  one,  this  would  be  not  merely 
an  injustice,  it  would  be  a  loss  of  productive 
energy  so  immense  that  it  would  reduce  the 
well-being  of  all,  including  the  dull  and  stupid. 

Socialism  is  becoming  increasingly  alive  to 
this,  as  well  as  to  the  importance  of  efficiency 
and  experience  in  different  departments  of 
work.  It  is  thus  pointed  out  that  the 
possibility  of  reaching  a  leading  position,  as 
well  as  the  right  of  retaining  the  place  that 
one's  labour  has  endeared  to  one,  will  con- 
is 


226         The  Younger  Generation 

stitute  incentives  to  work.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  socialists  have  not  sufficiently  re- 
marked that  there  is  a  far  more  important 
way  of  giving  a  man  promotion;  namely,  by 
allowing  him  increased  freedom  in  his  work, 
through  a  gradual  reduction  of  control. 

It  is  beginning  to  be  more  clearly  seen  that 
equality  is  not  justice,  either  as  regards  punish- 
ment or  reward.  A  punishment  which  would 
be  intolerable  to  a  finer  nature,  is  indifferent 
to  a  coarser  one,  and  vice  versa.  A  state  of 
things  which  would  permit  Wagner  to  make 
rules  for  Faust  and  Sancho  Panza  to  keep 
Don  Quixote  in  check  would  be  martyrdom 
to  Faust  and  Don  Quixote.  Nor  does  exist- 
ing society  smooth  the  way  for  the  exceptional 
nature,  but  the  latter  nevertheless  has  a 
chance  of  forcing  its  way  to  the  front.  On 
the  other  hand,  an  order  of  society  which 
would  force  a  Pasteur  to  observe  the  same 
normal  hours  of  work  as  a  shoemaker;  which 
would  provide  a  Michel  Angelo  with  work  on 
the  same  terms  as  a  stonemason,  and  allow  a 
Goethe  the  same  household  accommodation 
as  a  farm  labourer;  or  would  snatch  a  Pasteur, 
a  Michel  Angelo,  a  Goethe  from  their  re- 
searches and  inspirations  for  so  many  hours 
of  "social"  forced  labour,  such  an  arrange- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          227 

ment  would  be  anything  but  favourable  to 
their  powers  of  production.  The  more  deeply 
a  man  is  intellectually  occupied,  the  more 
painfully  he  feels  any  interruption.  All  such 
proposals  as  an  exchange  between  different 
employments;  alternate  physical  and  mental 
work  at  different  times  of  year,  thus  making 
the  intellectual  worker  earn  his  living  by  easy 
manual  labour — these  proposals,  which  have 
so  often  been  made  by  socialists,  rest  upon  an 
entire  misunderstanding  of  creative  mental 
work  and  of  the  necessity  of  acquiring  by  pre- 
paration and  practice  the  efficiency  which 
can  render  a  change  of  work  a  rest  instead  of 
a  drudgery.  Even  if  a  more  harmonious 
education  than  the  present  may  render  more 
variety  of  work  possible,  it  is  certain  that  a 
fundamental  distinction  will  nevertheless  per- 
sist between  the  physical  and  the  intellectual 
worker,  a  distinction  which  rests  upon  psycho- 
logical and  physical  laws.  If  an  exchange  of 
activity  may  be  a  rest  to  a  few  men,  to  many 
it  is  only  increased  toil.  Besides  this,  it 
would  be  an  absurdity  if  that  part  of  my  work 
which  is  unessential  to  my  personality  should 
be  what  was  socially  valued  and  secured  my 
existence  as  a  citizen,  while  my  essential 
creative  work  should  be  regarded  as  my  private 


228         The  Younger  Generation 

amusement.  Such  an  inversion  of  all  real 
values  would  involve  a  most  profound  depre- 
ciation of  the  powers  of  production  of  creative 
genius.  It  would  make  the  man  of  science, 
the  poet,  and  the  artist  endeavour  to  bring 
about  a  return  to  the  present  state  of  things, 
the  uncertainty  of  which  is  doubtless  painful, 
but  the  freedom  is  nevertheless  great  enough 
to  render  possible  that  tension  of  the  powers 
which  gives  life  colour  and  value.  In  a  co- 
ercive society,  again,  a  genius  would  lapse 
into  disgust  with  life,  although  he  would 
possess  from  the  beginning  what  in  some  cases 
he  does  not  attain  in  a  whole  lifetime — security 
of  livelihood  and  provision  for  old  age. 

To  these  dangers  must  be  added  this,  that 
in  the  socialist  community  the  value  of  intel- 
lectual work  would  be  determined  by  the 
opinion  of  the  majority.  The  majority  never 
wants  what  is  original  and  new,  but  these 
things  have  to  force  themselves  upon  the 
majority  by  persistent  attacks.  If  a  majority 
were  able  entirely  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  these  original  efforts,  the  result  would  be 
at  first  a  stagnation,  then  a  retrogression  in 
culture. 

In  our  existing  society  the  value  of  intel- 
lectual work  is  depreciated  partly  by  failure 


The  Few  and  the  Many          229 

to  recognise  it,  owing  to  insufficient  culture; 
partly  by  economic  compulsion  which  leads 
to  weak  productions  being  given  to  the  world ; 
partly  by  taking  advantage  of  the  taste  of  the 
buying  public,  and  finally  by  the  temptation 
to  leave  intellectual  work  for  more  profitable 
speculations.  In  this  field,  as  in  all  others, 
that  of  politics  especially,  our  present  society 
is  demoralised  by  the  economic  struggle  for 
existence. 

These  existing  dangers  to  intellectual  work 
would  to  a  great  extent  disappear  in  a  reformed 
society.  If  this  society  were  arranged  by  an 
uncultivated  majority,  the  possibilities  pointed 
out  above  would,  on  the  other  hand,  oppress 
the  intellectual  upper  class  and  to  some  extent 
become  realities.  And  in  that  case  the  con- 
ditions for  production  would  be  impaired  for 
the  time  being.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
leaders  of  culture  take  part  in  the  transforma- 
tion of  society,  they  will  certainly  know  how 
to  provide  incentives,  security  and  freedom  for 
intellectual  work.  Culture  in  the  socialist 
State  will  be,  as  everywhere  else,  an  expression 
.  of  the  cultural  needs  of  the  community.  And 
that  these  may  be  provided  for  in  circum- 
stances entirely  different  from  the  present  is 
proved  by  many  examples  in  history,  above 


230         The  Younger  Generation 

all  that  of  the  monastery.  We  may  hardly 
suppose  that  any  socialistic  community  would 
leave  us  less  personal  liberty,  introduce  a 
more  communistic  mode  of  life,  and  retain 
fewer  personal  motives  for  work  than  was 
done  by  the  monasteries.  And  yet  the  monas- 
tery was  the  chief  vehicle  of  culture  during 
the  Middle  Ages  and  individual  propensities 
enjoyed  great  freedom  of  movement  within 
its  walls.  It  is  significant  in  this  connection 
that  the  most  celebrated  monastery  of  South 
Germany,  Benediktbeuern,  erected  a  little 
hermitage  on  the  shore  of  one  of  the  glorious 
mountain  lakes  of  Bavaria,  where  the  in- 
trospective, nature-loving,  poetic,  or  artistic 
among  the  monks  might  retire  from  the  bustle 
and  regulations  of  the  great  convent  and  seek 
inspiration  and  leisure  for  work. 

It  may  be  objected  that  it  was  piety  that 
impelled  the  monks'  pen  and  brush ;  that  their 
faith  compensated  for  the  absence  of  personal 
interest  in  their  work.  But  piety  was  often 
only  another  name  for  personal  desire  of 
creation.  And  that  the  latter  was  so  powerful 
in  the  monastery  was  due  to  a  deeper  cause 
than  religious  views,  a  cause  to  which  I  shall 
return  later.  Moreover  it  is  not  inconceiv- 
able that  the  social  sense  may  one  day  become 


The  Few  and  the  Many          231 

a  religious  motive  force  to  the  same  extent  as 
piety  was  in  the  monastery.  We  who  are 
now  living  stand  at  the  commencement  of 
the  epoch  of  solidarity  and  can  have  only  a 
presentiment  of  the  transformations  this  sense 
will  be  able  to  produce,  the  value  of  the  new 
motives  it  will  give  humanity,  and  the  height 
of  the  feelings  of  happiness  it  will  create. 

6.     Intellectual    and    Material    Labour.     The 
Class    Distinction    Involved    Therein 

Although  some  socialists  recognise  the  ne- 
cessity of  different  conditions  for  intellectual 
and  material  labour,  others  think  that  such 
distinctions  would  also  preserve  the  social 
inequalities  in  the  community. 

Yes,  they  certainly  would  do  so ;  but  only 
those  inequalities  which  no  altered  circum- 
stances could  abolish, — inequalities  in  talent. 
And  that  these  are  the  work  of  Nature  herself, 
and  not  of  external  circumstances,  is  proved 
to  us  by  life,  when  the  same  family  produces 
the  genius  and  the  idiot.  In  the  face  of  the 
intellectual  upper  and  lower  class  created  by 
Nature,  no  reform  is  of  any  avail,  although  a 
long  course  of  outer  and  inner  influences  may 
contribute  to  adjust  to  some  extent  the  natural 


232         The  Younger  Generation 

inequality.  And  it  can  never  seriously  sug- 
gest itself  to  a  reasonable  person  to  preach 
revolution  against  the  privileges  of  Nature. 
"Genius,"  says  a  Swedish  writer,  "cannot 
oppress  .  .  .  but  wealth  and  rank  can  oppress. 
.  .  .  The  former  cannot  be  owned  by  all,  nor 
can  it  be  alienated;  the  latter  can  be  owned 
by  all  and  can  change  owners.  It  is  only 
these  advantages  that  are  the  objects  of  envy 
and  may  become  objects  of  hatred,  nay,  of 
violence  and  revolution." 

The  unnatural  class  distinction  on  the  other 
hand,  which  capital  now  creates,  must  be 
abolished  just  as  surely  as  the  unnatural  class 
distinction  once  created  by  birth.  Capital- 
ism still  makes  it  possible  for  slave  souls  to 
tyrannise  over  master  souls.  Figaro  is  still 
a  servant,  though  not  to  the  Count  but  to  the 
banker.  The  artistic  spirit  is  often  obliged 
to  confine  itself  to  the  workshop  while  dilet- 
tantism holds  sway  in  the  drawing-room;  the 
inventor  not  unfrequently  has  to  keep  his 
subordinate  place  in  the  factory,  because  he 
has  not  the  capital  to  carry  out  his  own  inven- 
tion, the  fruits  of  which  enrich  the  manu- 
facturer and — are  squandered  by  his  sons. 

But  in  an  order  of  society  not  controlled 
by  capital  there  would  be  a  much  greater 


The  Few  and  the  Many          233 

possibility  and  a  much  greater  inducement  to 
afford  every  gifted  man  an  opportunity  of 
performing  what  he  could  do  better  than  the 
rest.  The  many  who  have  no  marked  apti- 
tude, or  those  who  have  a  difficulty  in  making 
the  value  of  their  talents  intelligible  to  all, 
would  then  as  now  be  obliged  to  do  some 
work  which  was  not  altogether  to  their  taste. 
But  the  specially  gifted  man  would  have  both 
the  means  and  the  time  to  work  his  way  and 
finally  to  obtain  acknowledgment  for  his 
peculiar  talents,  his  new  ideas.  And  it  would 
be  to  the  common  interest  of  all  to  ease  the 
conditions  of  labour  of  the  manual  workers 
by  means  of  new  inventions  and  new  machin- 
ery; whereas  in  many  cases  new  machinery 
now  only  increases  the  profit  of  the  employers 
and  reduces  the  earnings  of  labour.  At  the 
same  time  as  the  conditions  of  manual  labour 
were  made  easier,  every  one,  before  entering 
upon  it,  would  have  received  the  general 
education  and  the  opportunity  for  continued 
education  that  are  now  wanting.  Thereby 
the  present  class  distinction  would  be  removed 
which  consists  in  other  feelings,  other  thoughts, 
and  other  life-values,  so  that  each  class  has 
neither  understanding  nor  respect  for  the 
values  of  the  other. 


234         The  Younger  Generation 

Above  all,  that  mark  of  lower  and  upper 
class  would  be  abolished  which  consists  in  one 
being  the  servants  or  employees  of  the  other. 
All  would  know  that  they  were  fellow-workers 
dependent  on  each  other's  health.  After  all 
these  sweeping  changes  the  manual  workers 
would  acquire  quite  another  view  of  the  value 
of  intellectual  work  than  they  can  now  possess, 
when  they  have  little  chance  of  enjoying  the 
fruits  of  the  inventions  that  are  made — indeed, 
are  often  thrown  out  of  work  by  them — and 
when,  for  want  of  education  or  time,  they  can 
seldom  have  a  share  in  the  book  or  work  of  art 
that  is  produced  by  the  representatives  of 
intellectual  labour. 

With  regard  to  the  conditions  of  labour,  I 
will  venture  the  assumption  that  in  the  social- 
ist State — where  the  wishes  of  all  will  be  able 
to  make  themselves  heard — the  extreme  spe- 
cialisation of  labour,  which  is  the  condition 
of  existing  production,  will  be  compelled  in 
the  interests  of  individualism  to  give  way. 
Owing  to  specialisation  the  individual  has 
little  joy  in  his  work,  since  he  cannot  express 
himself  in  it.  The  most  perfect  happiness 
in  work  that  I  have  seen  was  in  the  case  of  an 
old  locksmith,  who  made  keys  and  ornaments. 
Every  wrinkle  in  his  face  was  dug  either  by 


The  Few  and  the  Many          235 

pondering  over  problems  or  by  the  delight  of 
having  solved  them.  He  caressed  every  ob- 
ject with  eye  and  hand  before  he  let  it  go. 
In  looking  at  him  the  idea  occurred  to  me, 
which  I  afterwards  found  had  been  expressed 
by  Ruskin,  that  the  head,  heart,  and  hand 
ought  to  share  in  every  work,  if  it  is  to  bring 
joy  to  the  worker  and  be  a  living  expression 
of  his  personality.  No  other  hand  than  that 
of  the  artist  himself,  says  Ruskin,  can  execute 
the  jewel,  the  glass,  the  bowl  that  his  imagina- 
tion has  created.  In  this  union  of  art  and 
handicraft  lay  the  superiority  of  antiquity 
and  of  the  Renaissance.  Household  imple- 
ments just  as  much  as  works  of  art  were  then 
the  expression  of  a  person's  creative  joy  and 
skill. 

Ruskin  thinks  that  when  all  work  becomes 
a  happy  exercise  of  art;  when  the  workers 
are  surrounded  by  healthy  and  beautiful  con- 
ditions of  life — without  which  no  true  beauty 
can  come  into  being — then  the  quantity  of 
production  will  indeed  be  decreased,  but  its 
quality  will  be  immeasurably  improved. 

Ruskin  further  insists  that  we  must 
make  political  economy  follow  the  sense  of 
beauty.  We  must  resolutely  sacrifice  all 
such  convenience,  cheapness,  and  beauty  as 


236         The  Younger  Generation 

depends  on  the  degradation  of  the  workers 
and  grows  out  of  the  inhuman  ugliness  and 
poverty  of  the  slums.  Thus  all  will  gradually 
be  trained  to  understand  true  beauty,  which 
is  not  a  luxury,  but  a  moderate,  appropriate, 
personal,  and  tasteful  way  of  satisfying  real 
needs. 

It  is  easy  to  point  to  exaggeration  in  what  is 
quoted  above,  and  yet  it  is  not  inconceivable 
that  Ruskin's  ideas  in  certain  cases  are  those 
of  the  future.  Whereas,  on  the  one  hand, 
machinery  will  more  and  more  perform  such 
work  with  which  head  and  heart  have  little 
or  nothing  to  do,  handicraft  may  reconquer 
those  fields  in  which  the  personality  can  find 
a  real  expression.  Even  now  the  ornaments 
turned  out  by  the  dozen — which  unquestion- 
ably have  had  a  certain  importance  in  develop- 
ing and  satisfying  the  sense  of  beauty — are 
beginning  to  be  replaced  in  refined  homes  by 
more  artistic  objects.  And  to  a  conscience 
aesthetically  and  socially  awakened  the  cheap 
articles  referred  to  are  intolerable.  They 
have  the  effect  of  spots  of  dirt  upon  festival 
attire,  since  one  knows  them  to  be  products 
of  hunger  and  sweating. 

Since  the  necessity  pointed  out  above  of 
entirely  abandoning  perfect  equality — which 


The  Few  and  the  Many          237 

means  perfect  injustice — has  been  put  forward, 
a  new  objection  has  been  made,  that,  with 
unequal  conditions  of  labour,  one  man  will 
find  an  opportunity  of  making  his  talents,  his 
objects  of  art  or  other  values  "bear  interest" 
at  the  expense  of  another.  This  is  very 
probable.  But  the  greatest  temptation  to  the 
majority  to  allow  themselves  to  be  thus 
financially  misused  will  disappear  when  every 
one  has  a  safe  livelihood  in  return  for  moderate 
work.  Does  not  many  a  man  even  now  re- 
fuse to  sacrifice  his  leisure  for  insufficiently 
paid  work?  And  above  all  we  may  assume 
that  a  new  sense  of  justice  will  be  developed, 
which  will  condemn  such  anti-social  deeds  as 
dishonourable,  just  as  forgery  is  now  con- 
demned in  the  capitalist  society.  To  begin 
with,  however,  regulations  will  certainly  be 
needed  to  hinder  such  abuses.  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  we  may  remember,  the  rulers  used  to 
forbid  the  erection  of  fortified  castles,  when 
they  were  used  as  centres  of  robbery.  Now 
there  are  no  such  prohibitions,  as  in  the  present 
state  of  society  it  does  not  occur  to  any  one 
to  fortify  a  castle  for  himself.  Thus  too  the 
robber  customs  of  our  time  may  die  out  in  a 
future  where  everything  will  contribute  to 
starve  them  out. 


238         The  Younger  Generation 

It  is  obvious  that  new  conflicts,  at  present 
unforeseen,  must  arise  in  a  transformed  so- 
ciety. As  greed  of  gain  decreases,  desire  of 
power,  thirst  for  fame  and  other  forms  of 
ambition  will  probably  increase.  Ideal  con- 
ditions can  be  realised  only  through  ideal  men. 
And  in  this  case  Christianity  is  always  right 
— life  proceeds  from  the  heart.  Not  merely 
from  better  conditions  of  life,  but  above  all 
from  ennobled  souls  will  a  greater  happiness 
blossom.  But  at  the  same  time  we  must  not 
underestimate  the  importance  of  improved 
conditions  of  life  to  moral  and  intellectual 
development.  Conditions  of  life  have  a  great 
significance  in  the  spiritual  transformation 
which  is  to  make  other  motives  than  the  pre- 
sent ones  decide  the  issues  of  life  and  other 
values  the  object  of  our  endeavours. 

What  is  materialistic  and  one-sided  in  the 
socialist  agitation — in  the  course  of  which 
many  socialists  have  called  the  social  question 
a  "question  of  the  stomach,"  and  asserted 
that  the  whole  history  of  development  is  only 
the  history  of  economy — this  one-sidedness 
has  perhaps  been  useful  to  the  agitation.  A 
bow  too  finely  carved  breaks  when  it  is  bent. 

But  now  socialism  requires  above  all  to  be 
spiritually  deepened.  It  is  therefore  a  for- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          239 

tunate  thing  for  socialism  that  anarchism  is 
forcing  it  to  "anarchise"  its  theories,  just  as 
socialism  has  forced  liberalism  to ' '  socialise' '  its 
policy.  Anarchism  has  certain  grave  warnings 
to  offer.  It  takes  the  part  of  individualism 
against  the  tyranny  of  the  State;  of  self- 
government  against  centralisation;  of  initiative 
against  control.  Although  the  outrages  of 
the  anarchists  are  detestable,  although  their 
present  theories  if  logically  carried  out  would 
lead  to  the  struggles  of  a  state  of  savagery 
— a  life  in  which  every  man's  hand  would  be 
against  every  man — their  ideal  is  nevertheless 
the  pillar  of  fire  that  shows  us  where  the  land 
of  promise  lies:  the  land  where  the  ideas  both 
of  individualism  and  socialism  will  finally  be 
absorbed  in  a  higher  unity. 

7.     The  Influence  of  Society  on  the  Development 
of  the  Individuality 

But,  even  if  all  the  necessary  considerations 
for  the  rights  of  the  individual  pointed  out 
above  are  provided  for  in  the  socialistic  society, 
the  protest  of  out-and-out  individualism  still 
remains. 

While  the  anarchist  hopes  that  the  indi- 
vidual will  come  into  his  full  rights  and  happi- 


240         The  Younger  Generation 

ness  when  every  one  receives  according  to  his 
needs,  when  every  one  works  according  to 
his  inclination  and  acts  according  to  his  will, 
when  everything  exists  for  all  and  humanity 
becomes  one  great  family,  in  which  the  strong 
will  protect  the  weak — while  the  anarchist 
thus  entertains  a  superstitious  belief  in  the 
ennobling  of  human  nature  merely  through 
altered  circumstances — the  individualist,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  profoundly  sceptical.  He 
is  even  more  so  with  regard  to  the  ennobling 
of  the  masses  than  he  is  about  the  transforma- 
tion of  conditions.  He  assumes  that  a  uni- 
versal equality  in  the  conditions  of  life  and 
in  education  would  only  flatten  out  originality 
and  make  the  masses  less  willing  to  allow  the 
superman  to  advance  in  unfettered  freedom 
according  to  the  demands  of  his  nature. 
For  the  masses  themselves  will  never  be  able 
to  produce  culture- values.  They  are  the 
deep  black  soil,  the  prosaic  anterior  condition 
for  the  golden  ears,  the  swelling  grapes,  the 
crimson  roses  that  culture  grows. 

Darwinism  has  been  profoundly  abused  in 
being  held  up  as  an  aristocratic  principle 
applicable  alike  to  the  domain  of  culture  and 
to  that  of  nature.  For  Darwinism  in  reality 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  formation  of  an 


The  Few  and  the  Many          241 

upper  and  a  lower  class,  such  as  we  now  see. 
Within  this  class  system  complicated  condi- 
tions of  property  and  production  have  done 
their  best  to  upset  the  Darwinian  law  of  the 
"survival  of  the  fittest."  In  this,  as  in  so 
many  other  cases,  society  has  departed  from 
nature,  has  hindered  the  selection  of  the  best, 
and  often  preserved  the  worst  instead. 

That  the  superman  will  be  the  result  of  a 
long  succession  of  happy  selections  among 
fortunately  placed  men  of  culture  is  one  of  the 
sayings  we  often  hear.  Those  who  speak 
thus  forget  the  old  experience  of  the  rapid 
degeneration  of  ruling  classes  or  brilliant 
families.  Especially  when  the  passion  for 
wealth  has  got  the  upper  hand  and  exhausted 
all  their  strength,  such  families  seldom  con- 
tinue beyond  the  second  or  third  generation 
without  showing  all  the  signs  of  degeneration. 
It  is  also  forgotten  that  most  men  of  genius 
have  arisen  directly  from  the  lower  class — 
frequently  with  a  clergyman  or  official  as  an 
intermediate  link,  among  us  in  the  North. 
All  the  uneducated  "natural  geniuses"  are 
forgotten,  of  whom  there  are  so  many 
everywhere — in  mechanics  especially,  in  our 
country.  It  is  the  fresh  brains,  hitherto  un- 
used for  the  purposes  of  culture,  that,  as  a 

16 


242         The  Younger  Generation 

rule,  prove  to  be  the  most  fertile,  the  most 
creative. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  true  that  there  exists 
a  physical  and  psychical  refinement  which  is  a 
mark  of  breeding,  a  product  of  long-continued 
culture.  But  these  refined  ones  often  enjoy 
far  more  keenly  than  they  create. 

Nor  is  this  refinement  a  consequence  of 
upper  class  life  alone.  We  may  see,  for  in- 
stance, a  child,  born  in  the  lower  but  adopted 
into  the  upper  class,  showing  at  once  so  intense 
an  enjoyment  of  the  beautiful,  so  natural  a 
refinement,  so  delicate  a  sensitiveness  to  all 
that  is  ugly,  that  if  it  had  remained  within  its 
own  class,  it  would  have  been  tempted  to 
satisfy  its  craving  for  beauty  by  pernicious 
means,  or  forced  to  suffer  through  life  from 
the  incompatibility  between  its  profoundest 
needs  and  the  conditions  of  its  life.  A  single 
child  like  this  teaches  us  more  of  the  deepest 
import  of  the  social  question  than  hundreds 
of  essays. 

If  individualism  thus  knows  no  more  than 
any  other  theory  about  the  genesis  of  the 
"superman,"  this  does  not  prevent  it  from 
uttering  deeply  significant  truths  about  his 
path  through  life. 

Individualism  is  right  in  its  protest  against 


The  Few  and  the  Many          243 

the  tendency  of  all  democracy  to  promote  the 
condition  of  the  many  more  than  that  of  the 
few,  against  its  disposition  to  measure  likes 
and  dislikes  according  to  the  low  standard  of 
the  majority.  Individualism  is  right  in  de- 
manding ample  space  for  the  great  personality. 
It  is  obliged  to  insist,  with  Nietzsche — and 
many  before  him — that  the  essence  of  genius 
is  an  overflow  of  forces,  a  rapture  of  inspiration, 
an  infinity,  which  demands  altogether  differ- 
ent conditions  for  its  creative  power,  especially 
in  art,  from  those  applicable  to  ordinary  men. 
The  spokesmen  of  individualism  are  indis- 
pensable and  have  been  obliged  to  be  one- 
sided in  order  to  stir  men's  minds.  Especially 
to  awaken  a  perception  of  the  fact  that  more 
small  souls  than  great  ones  come  into  being, 
more  unproductive  minds  than  productive, 
and  that  it  would  be  an  abuse  if  the  former 
were  allowed  to  draw  the  latter  down  to  their 
level.  Emerson  and  Mill  have  pleaded  the 
cause  of  the  individuality;  Carlyle  has  in- 
sisted on  the  supremacy  of  the  hero,  as  has 
Browning  on  that  of  passion;  Kierkegaard 
bases  his  hope  on  the  individual  and  Ibsen 
on  the  solitary ;  Stirner  would  make  the  unique 
one  supreme,  and  Nietzsche  dreamed  of  his 
superman  as  master  of  the  world.  Nietzsche's 


244         The  Younger  Generation 

prophetic  voice  was  heard  at  the  right  time, 
when  there  was  a  danger  that  the  many,  "the 
herd,"  would  outvoice  the  few  with  their 
claims.  This  deep  significance  of  Nietzsche 
may  be  fully  acknowledged  without  our  being 
obliged  to  accept  one  of  his  attributes  for  the 
superman:  that  of  pitilessly  and  relentlessly 
passing  over  the  herd.  For  more  than  one  has 
become  a  "superman"  through  directing  his 
"will  to  power"  to  making  the  many  happy. 
More  than  one  superman  has  ended  as  a  man 
of  the  "herd,"  although — or  because — his 
path  lay  over  the  existence  of  others.  It  is 
certainly  by  deeper  signs  than  pitilessness 
that  slave  or  master  souls  are  to  be  recognised. 
That  mighty  superman  Spinoza,  who  has 
perhaps  given  deeper  impulses  to  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  the  nineteenth  century  than 
any  other  thinker,  laid  down  once  for  all  in 
his  Ethics  the  limitations  of  the  superman. 
He  proclaims  it  as  the  foremost  duty  of  every 
man  to  follow  the  first  law  of  nature — that 
every  one  should  love  himself  and  defend  his 
own  existence.  Everything  that  physically 
or  psychically  promotes  my  existence,  that 
calls  forth  a  general  development  of  force,  and 
that  leads  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  degree  of 
perfection,  is  happiness;  everything  that  acts 


The  Few  and  the  Many          245 

in  the  contrary  direction  is  suffering.  The 
stronger  our  spiritual  life  is,  the  greater  our 
joy;  the  greater  our  joy  is,  the  greater  our 
perfection.  Each  has  the  right  to  everything, 
so  far  as  his  power  extends.  But  as  each  man 
can  best  maintain  his  existence,  develop  his 
perfection,  and  exercise  his  power  in  associa- 
tion with  other  men,  it  becomes  necessary  that 
none  shall  obstruct  the  existence  of  others; 
that,  on  the  contrary,  each  shall  so  far  limit 
his  rights,  as  not  to  demand  of  others  that 
they  shall  do  or  submit  to  what  he  himself 
will  not  do  or  submit  to. 

Our  own  interest,  indeed,  prompts  us  to 
this.  For  if  we  hinder  the  existence  and 
development  of  others,  our  own  existence  will 
not  be  so  rich  and  developed  as  it  would  be- 
come by  reciprocal  interaction  with  others. 

In  this  the  absolute  claim  of  the  superman 
is  attacked  with  a  dialectic  weapon  as  subtle 
as  that  which  Nietzsche  wielded  against  the 
claims  of  the  herd. 

Even  if  the  masses  could  be  kept  altogether 
down,  this  would  result  not  only  in  an  even 
greater  loss  of  values  to  culture,  values  which 
the  supermen  who  now  not  unfrequently 
emerge  from  the  "herd"  would  then  be  alto- 
gether prevented  from  producing.  No,  the 


246         The  Younger  Generation 

masters  themselves,  secure  in  their  supremacy, 
would  lead  a  more  and  more  cramped  exist- 
ence up  on  their  heights,  if  they  were  not 
surrounded  by  the  warm  climate  which  the 
sympathy  of  the  many  provides. 

For  it  needs  no  proof  that  the  produc- 
tion of  culture- values  always  stands  in  a  cer- 
tain relation  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  even  if 
we  have  ceased  to  regard  genius  as  merely  a 
creature  of  that  spirit.  Genius  is  always  a 
miracle,  but  one  that  has  been  prepared: 
we  do  not  expect  a  Darwin  from  Tierra  del 
Fuego  or  an  Eskimo  Dante.  We  know  that 
when  genius  is  born,  it  is  from  the  womb  of 
the  nation's  culture,  and  that  the  many  who 
assimilate  the  work  of  a  great  genius  and  are 
enriched  and  refined  by  it,  enhance  in  their 
turn  the  creative  power  of  the  genius. 

If  individualism  is  easily  refuted  in  its 
modern  claims — that  the  many  exist  to  serve 
the  few  supermen — its  position  is  all  the 
stronger  in  another  respect,  namely,  in  the 
assertion  that  the  levelling  of  the  conditions 
of  life,  of  inequalities  of  education,  and  of 
social  forms,  which  is  now  taking  place  through 
an  increasing  democratisation  and  uniformity, 
will  crush  out  individuality  itself  and  gradu- 
ally deprive  culture  of  great  minds,  since  it 


The  Few  and  the  Many          247 

will  be  entirely  impossible  for  great  minds  to 
appear.  Our  own  time  is  already  used  as  a 
proof  of  this;  but  it  is  forgotten  that  in  all 
times  proximity  reduces  the  measure  of  great- 
ness in  the  eyes  of  contemporaries.  It  is 
quite  certain  that  in  a  hundred  years  our  time 
will  be  glorified  in  comparison  with  the  paltri- 
ness then  existing. 

But  in  spite  of  this  evident  injustice  towards 
our  contemporaries,  every  thoughtful  person 
must  see  that  there  is  nevertheless  an  increas- 
ing danger  that  the  unique,  intellectually 
aristocratic  personality  will  become  rare  in  a 
democratised  community.  America  gives  us 
an  example  of  this.  But  this  American  demo- 
cracy is  still  one  in  which  economic  considera- 
tions are  supreme.  The  calm  acquisition  of 
culture  is  in  that  country  almost  the  greatest 
of  luxuries.  Life  is  nothing  but  a  hunt  for 
wealth,  a  hunt  in  which  many  fall,  while  a 
few  become  multimillionaires.  All  the  politi- 
cally democratic  institutions  have  for  their 
real  president  the  dollar.  America  is  the 
great  proof  of  the  fact  that  democracy  and 
capitalism  together  create  tyranny.  And 
therefore  people  in  America  are  becoming 
increasingly  alive  to  the  necessity  of  social 
reform.  Switzerland  is  another  democratic 


248         The  Younger  Generation 

example.  Tranquillity  prevails  there,  a  general 
well-being  and — in  the  words  of  Laboulaye's 
apt  definition  of  a  democracy — a  self-govern- 
ment which  operates  incessantly  within  small 
circles  for  objects  which  even  the  least  of  the 
citizens  understands.  But  there  the  people 
are  absorbed  in  a  narrow-minded  local  particu- 
larism; no  rich  movements  occur  to  promote 
culture,  no  really  great  centres  of  culture 
exist;  great  geniuses  are  seldom  born  there, 
although  many  of  the  most  original  and 
vigorous  of  the  talented  men  of  our  day  have 
there  seen  the  light. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  history  shows  demo- 
cracies in  which  the  general  level  of  culture 
was  that  of  the  high  plateau,  without  this 
preventing  bright  summits  from  rising  above 
the  plain. 

For  the  culture  of  a  people  does  not  depend 
only  upon  its  political  forms.  It  depends 
upon  whether  the  nation  lives  well  in  an  intel- 
lectual sense,  with  a  happily  asserted  inde- 
pendence, in  a  material  prosperity  which 
allows  of  cheerful  sacrifices  in  the  interests  of 
culture;  and  upon  its  possessing  an  open  eye 
and  a  real  passion  for  its  cultural  tasks.  A 
nation  becomes  cultured  when,  simultane- 
ously with  the  appearance  of  great  creative 


The  Few  and  the  Many          249 

minds,  the  lives  of  the  many  are  also  full  of 
meaning,  so  that  they  receive  from  the  few, 
and  give  to  the  few,  impulses  of  cultural 
significance.  In  a  community  organised  on 
social-democratic  lines  the  individuality  could 
thus  be  saved,  if  life  in  general  were  to  be 
made  more  profound  and  manifold,  instead 
of  being  reduced  to  a  dead  level. 

Thus  this  path  also  brings  us  back  to  the 
question  already  asked:  whether  there  is  a 
prospect  that,  in  a  new  society,  new  life- 
values  will  also  arise? 

8.     Enjoyment  of  Life  in  Existing  Society  and 

its  Possible  Enhancement  in  a 

Transformed  Society 

Greed  of  gain  and  competition  lead  to  a 
constantly  increasing  production.  But  the 
capacity  for  enjoying  the  values  thus  created 
declines  almost  in  the  same  proportion  as  the 
values  increase. 

From  this  period  of  financial  swindles,  stock- 
exchange  panics,  suicides,  and  nervous  diseases 
rises  a  steadily  growing  desire  for  quietness, 
health,  beauty — even  if  it  were  within  the 
walls  of  a  convent.  As  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  romanticism  has  be- 


250         The  Younger  Generation 

come  a  manifestation  of  this  longing  for  rest 
from  the  feverish  agitation  of  life.  What  is 
genuine  in  the  symbolism  and  mysticism  of 
modern  literature  and  art  is  an  expression 
both  of  the  thirst  for  beauty  and  of  the  de- 
mand for  reform  felt  by  our  time.  Many  of 
the  symbolists  of  the  1890*5  were  at  the  same 
time  anarchists  and  attached  themselves  to 
Jesus'  doctrine  of  fraternity  with  the  same 
aesthetic  enthusiasm  and  personal  heterodoxy 
as  the  older  romantic  school  attached  them- 
selves to  Catholicism.  Even  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  Rahel  Varnhagen 
declared  that  "new  means  for  the  salvation  of 
mankind  must  be  discovered ;  the  old  ones  are 
worn  out."  And  the  nineteenth  century  was 
one  in  which  Utopias  of  reform  succeeded  one 
another,  all  witnessing  to  humanity's  increas- 
ing consciousness  of  the  torments  it  was 
suffering  in  the  existing  state  of  things. 
Therefore  it  now  clutches  at  the  hope  that  a 
state  of  society  may  be  attained  in  which  every 
one  will  be  able  to  use  his  now  languishing 
vital  energy.  These  sufferings  have  been 
called  "the  malady  of  the  end  of  the  century," 
as  though  the  end  of  the  century  before  had 
not  been  a  period  remarkable  above  all  for 
vital  force.  But  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 


The  Few  and  the  Many          251 

century,  as  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth, 
humanity  found  itself  at  the  close  of  one  phase 
of  culture  and  in  expectation  of  another. 
This  is  what  makes  us  despondent — our  no 
longer  being  satisfied  with  what  we  possess. 
We  no  longer  regard  Christianity  as  a  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  life;  we  no  longer  look 
upon  the  existing  conditions  of  family  life, 
the  State,  and  economics  as  a  basis  for  con- 
tinued development.  The  old  society  was 
shattered  by  the  Revolution;  the  whole  nine- 
teenth century  was  an  expression  of  this  dis- 
ruption and  a  preparation  for  a  new  society, 
from  which  we  expect  daylight,  not  merely 
"revolutionary  lightnings  and  philanthropic 
shooting  stars." 

If  we  call  the  great  evil  of  the  age  weariness 
of  life,  we  have  certainly  gained  a  name  for 
the  disease;  but  this  does  not  help  us  to  reach 
its  manifold  causes.  The  most  significant 
of  these  is  the  impossibility  of  living  that  is 
everywhere  produced  by  the  struggle  for  life. 
For  the  few  life  is  now  concentrated  upon  the 
acquisition  of  wealth,  for  the  many  upon  the 
maintenance  of  life.  For  those  who  amass 
the  means  of  enjoyment,  do  so  less  for  the 
sake  of  enjoying  than  for  the  sake  of  posses- 
sing; they  wish  to  increase  or  manifest 


252         The  Younger  Generation 

their  wealth,  not  to  heighten  their  joy  in 
life. 

If  all  the  spiritual  energy  which  on  both 
sides  is  thus  confined  to  purely  material  ends, 
were  set  free,  life  would  be  transformed  in  a 
way  we  can  scarcely  divine. 

Many  now  believe  that  existence  would 
lose  all  its  strong  forces,  if  the  struggle  for 
existence  were  to  cease. 

But  would  not  existence  continue  to  be 
determined  by  the  great,  mysterious  laws  of 
nature;  should  we  not  still  have  the  riddles  of 
life  and  death,  anxiety  and  grief,  beauty  and 
pain?  Would  not  human  beings,  then  as  now, 
be  born,  love,  suffer,  and  die? 

And  an  immense  afflux  of  personal  meaning 
would  take  place  in  all  the  great  spheres  of 
life,  if  men  acquired  what  they  do  not  now 
possess:  leisure  and  peace  to  rejoice  in  their 
happiness,  to  feel  their  sorrows,  to  deepen 
their  impressions  of  the  glories  of  nature,  art, 
and  literature.  To  "have  the  right  to  idle- 
ness" is  the  psychological  condition  for  lasting 
impressions  and  strong  creative  power,  when 
the  impressions  have  been  assimilated  at 
leisure.  This  was  the  secret  of  the  productive 
energy  of  the  cloistered  life,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  rareness  of  strong  impres- 


The  Few  and  the  Many          253 

sions  involved  a  great  limitation  of  that 
energy. 

The  struggle  for  daily  bread,  the  cares  of 
livelihood — the  most  harassing,  blunting,  and 
disfiguring  of  all  worries — are  now  the  stamp 
of  private  as  well  as  public  life.  Everywhere 
around  us  they  check  untold  possibilities  of 
loving,  enjoying,  and  creating. 

Married  people  have  no  time  to  cultivate 
their  feelings  for  one  another,  to  follow  the 
light  and  shade  of  each  other's  spiritual  life, 
to  make  a  mutual  exchange  of  their  develop- 
ment— for  any  of  those  things  which  often 
made  the  period  before  marriage  so  rich. 
Through  the  cares  of  livelihood  parents  have 
no  time  to  live  with  their  children,  to  study 
them  in  order  to  be  able  really  to  educate  them. 
The  school  has  no  time  to  develop  personali- 
ties, only  to  prepare  for  examinations,  those 
fishing-lines  with  which  to  catch  one's  food. 
And  in  this  way  life  is  everywhere  wasted, 
while  people  wear  themselves  out  to  maintain 
life. 

Nothing  hinders  the  development  of  the 
individuality  to  such  an  extent  as  the  double 
influence  under  which  it  now  lives  from  child- 
hood. On  the  one  hand,  Christianity's  com- 
mandments of  charity,  the  law  of  unselfishness, 


254         The  Younger  Generation 

the  importance  of  self-sacrifice  are  inculcated. 
On  the  other,  the  same  growing  person  hears 
and  experiences  what  is  demanded  by  reality: 
a  relentless  struggle  to  get  on  in  an  existence 
in  which  competition  sets  each  man's  hand 
against  all;  in  which  he  must  strike  or  be 
struck,  defend  his  prey  like  a  wild  beast  or 
starve,  and  in  which  the  ruin  of  one  is  the 
salvation  of  another.  In  such  circumstances 
personal  unity  becomes  an  impossibility. 

We  often  hear  the  apprehension  expressed 
that  a  social  transformation  would  abolish 
the  home  and  the  family.  Most  certainly 
their  forms  would  be  to  some  extent  altered, 
but  a  transformation  which  attacked  the 
very  essence  of  the  relations  of  life  in  which 
human  nature  has  hitherto  found  its  greatest 
happiness,  is  unthinkable.  Whereas  existing 
society  offers  ever  fewer  opportunities  of 
marriage — and  thus  tends  to  the  stunting  or 
brutalising  of  the  emotions  connected  there- 
with— the  new  society  would  not  merely 
render  marriage  possible  to  all;  it  would  also 
assist  the  realisation  of  marriage  in  a  more 
beautiful  way. 

For  when  economic  or  other  low  considera- 
tions no  longer  have  any  bearing  on  marriage, 
men  and  women  would  seek  and  find  one 


The  Few  and  the  Many          255 

another  from  more  or  less  personal  motives. 
Marriage  would  be  able  in  both  sexes  to  de- 
velop new,  undreamt-of  possibilities  of  mutual 
happiness.  To  what  extent  such  a  develop- 
ment is  possible  is  disclosed  by  a  retrospect 
of  erotic  emotional  life  only  a  hundred,  nay, 
fifty  years  ago;  a  retrospect  which  will  show 
how  materially  that  emotional  life  was  already 
enlarged  and  refined,  in  spite  of  all  incongrui- 
ties still  prevailing.  The  optimism  of  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  is  thus  not  unfounded,  when 
he  bases  his  hope  of  the  continued  develop- 
ment of  the  human  race  on  the  erotic  idealism 
of  women  in  conjunction  with  socialism.  In 
a  socially  transformed  State,  he  thinks,  no 
woman  will  be  compelled  by  want  to  sell  her- 
self, either  in  or  outside  marriage.  And 
every  woman  will  receive  an  education  so 
universal  and  thorough,  that  the  age  of  mar- 
riage will  be  advanced  and  woman  may  become 
a  developed  personality  by  the  time  she  makes 
her  choice  of  love.  This  will  then  be  a  real 
selection;  most  women  will  probably  remain 
unmarried  until  they  have  found  the  man  with 
whom  they  can  unite  themselves  in  full  mutual 
and  personal  love;  or,  if  they  do  not  find  him, 
they  may  prefer  to  abstain  altogether  from 
marriage.  The  man  or  woman  physically 


256         The  Younger  Generation 

or  psychically  diseased  or  defective  would 
thus,  as  a  rule,  have  no  chance  of  rearing  a 
family;  whereas  now,  if  they  have  the  means, 
such  people  are  able  to  propagate  the  race, 
while  others,  excellently  qualified  in  body  and 
mind,  are  prevented  by  poverty  from  mar- 
rying. When  marriage  comes  to  be  contracted, 
as  a  rule,  from  mutual,  sympathetic  love 
between  individuals  who  have  reached  full 
mental  and  physical  maturity ;  when  marriage 
comes  to  be  regarded  as  the  highest  form  of 
life,  which  has  been  more  and  more  perfected, 
and  when  at  the  same  time  the  economic 
pressure  of  existing  society,  with  its  physically 
and  psychically  demoralising,  stunting,  and 
brutalising  influences,  has  been  removed- 
then  a  new  race  may  arise.  Then  the  selec- 
tion of  the  physically  faultless  and  high- 
minded  individuals  must  gradually  result  in 
the  average  man  of  the  future  reaching  the 
height  that  is  now  occupied  by  genius.  And 
the  genius  of  that  time  will  stand  as  high 
above  these  gifted  average  men  as  a  Goethe, 
a  Humboldt,  a  Shakespeare,  and  a  Newton 
stood  above  the  average  men  of  their  time. 
So  far  Wallace. 

If  humanity   arrived   at   economic  peace, 
then,  I  hope,  not  only  would  spiritual  life 


The  Few  and  the  Many          257 

itself  be  made  deeper,  but  its  manifestations 
would  become  richer.  The  faculty  of  com- 
municating one's  self,  and  of  showing  fine 
shades  in  one's  intercourse,  would  not  only 
recover  the  delicacy  it  possessed  before  the 
age  of  steam  and  electricity,  but  might  be 
even  further  refined.  An  art  critic  has  pointed 
out  that  the  Japanese  have  developed  their 
sense  of  touch  so  that  their  finger-tips  enjoy 
soft,  smooth,  agreeable  surfaces  as  keenly  as 
we  enjoy  colours  and  forms  and  tones.  All 
our  senses,  our  whole  temperament,  ought  to 
be  able  to  attain  a  similar  development,  so 
that  accents,  expressions,  gestures,  sensations 
of  every  kind  would  acquire  a  fuller,  more 
individual,  and  vivifying  character. 

Psychico-physiological  research  in  our  time 
also  gives  forebodings  of  a  hitherto  unknown 
enhancement  and  extension  of  our  personality, 
which  however  cannot  take  place  so  long  as 
our  energy  is  fettered  by  the  struggle  for 
existence  and  can  only  exceptionally  be  directed 
inwards.  It  is  not  to  spiritualist  superstition 
that  I  refer,  but  to  natural,  though  as  yet 
only  exceptional  manifestations  of  our  psychi- 
cal and  physical  powers.  This  development 
will  be  connected  with  a  return  to  nature, 
from  which  man  has  been  more  and  more 


17 


258         The  Younger  Generation 

separated  by  the  stress  of  work,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  finest  beauties  of  nature  are 
now  destroyed  for  the  many  by  the  few,  who 
again  have  often  no  choice  in  the  present 
economic  struggle  and  themselves  not  unfre- 
quently  suffer  from  the  destruction  they  set 
on  foot.  With  a  different  order  of  society 
we  may  expect  that  all  would  regard  it  as  a 
common  right  and  duty  to  protect  the  beauty 
of  nature,  as — instead  of  the  meaningless 
luxury  which  is  now  the  privilege  of  a  few — 
an  ever-increasing  intercourse  with  nature 
would  be  the  source  of  redoubled  joy  and 
strength  for  all. 

And  in  the  same  way  science,  art,  and  litera- 
ture would  become  in  an  entirely  new  degree 
life- values  to  men  who  were  no  longer  driven 
by  the  struggle  for  livelihood;  men  who  can 
now  only  see  that  intellectual  life  has  banquets 
in  preparation,  in  which  they  will  never  have 
a  chance  of  taking  part. 

Just  as  our  intellectual  energy  might  be 
multiplied,  so  might  our  power  of  giving  and 
receiving  real  values  in  social  intercourse  be 
developed.  At  present  our  social  life  is  to 
a  great  extent  an  expression  of  our  economic 
interests,  our  need  of  credit,  our  business  or 
official  connections,  our  class  position. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          259 

But  when  the  economic  motives  were  re- 
moved, we  should  have  more  power  and  cour- 
age to  arrange  our  life  as  an  expression  of  our 
nature,  not  of  our  income.  Now  it  is,  as  a 
rule,  only  millionaires  who  are  able  to  allow 
themselves  the  luxury  of  originality.  The 
poor  have  no  choice;  the  well-to-do  often 
think  themselves  obliged  "for  their  credit's 
sake"  to  imitate  the  rich,  and  these  to  imitate 
the  richer.  Thus,  if  poverty  brutalises  the 
personality,  wealth  makes  it  commonplace. 
His  numerous  "duties"  to  his  position  blunt 
the  individuality  of  the  rich  man  to  such  a 
degree  that  he  becomes  a  peculiar  type  just 
as  rarely  as  the  day  labourer,  and  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  has  time  for  real  personal 
life. 

9.    Luxury  and  Culture.     Future  Possibilities 
of  Happiness 

We  sometimes  hear  it  asserted  that  the 
wealth  of  the  few,  who  thereby  have  the  op- 
portunity of  developing  luxury,  is  a  condition 
of  all  higher  culture,  and  that  art  in  particular 
would  languish  without  riches. 

If  this  were  really  so,  the  condition  of  enter- 
ing into  the  heaven  of  fraternity  would  be 


260         The  Younger  Generation 

plucking  out  the  eye  of  the  sense  of  beauty 
and  cutting  off  the  creative  hand.  But  it  is 
not  true  that  luxury  is  an  indispensable  con- 
dition of  lofty  culture.  In  Athens  the  State, 
not  the  private  person,  was  the  patron  of 
art;  the  private  home  was  simple,  the  public 
building  magnificent.  In  Rome  again,  as 
everywhere  else,  it  was  finally  shown  that 
luxury — that  is,  an  inappropriate,  unnatural, 
and  expensive  way  of  satisfying  artificial 
wants — did  not  develop  a  true  sense  of  beauty. 
The  latter  endeavours  in  an  appropriate, 
moderate,  and  beautiful  way  to  satisfy  real 
wants.  Indeed,  one  of  the  greatest  lovers  of 
beauty  that  ever  lived,  Goethe,  says  that  all 
real  pleasure  is  simple;  that  luxury  may  do 
for  people  without  ideas,  whereas  he  himself 
felt  all  his  mental  elasticity  relaxed  in  gor- 
geous surroundings.  The  enjoyment  of  beauty 
often  stands  in  an  inverse  proportion  to  the 
elaborateness  of  the  apparatus. 

The  ancients  already  expressed  the  dangers 
of  aestheticism  in  the  subtle  saying:  "Where 
you  want  slaves,  you  must  make  music." 
Isolated  enjoyment  of  beauty  leads  to  the 
thraldom  of  the  mind  and  hinders  the  de- 
velopment of  character  which  really  forms 
noble,  free  personalities.  Over-refinement 


The  Few  and  the  Many          261 

always  ends  in  brutality,  which  is  the  final 
stimulus  of  exhausted  nerves.  Neither  the 
frigid  zone  of  paucity  nor  the  torrid  zone  of 
luxury,  but,  in  this  case  also,  only  the  tem- 
perate zone  is  favourable  to  the  growth  of  a 
lofty  culture. 

In  a  society  in  which  no  one  could  indulge 
in  luxury,  its  place  would  be  taken  by  what  is 
genuine  and  exquisite,  that  is,  what  bears  the 
stamp  of  personality.  Only  that  which  cor- 
responded to  one's  true  ego  would  be  looked 
upon  as  worthy  in  every  field.  Only  when 
each  one  lived  by  what  he  could  perform  bet- 
ter than  others;  when  each  one  associated  only 
with  those  with  whom  he  was  in  sympathy; 
when  every  home  was  filled  with  objects 
which  were  fashioned  lovingly  and  chosen 
and  arranged  according  to  the  personal  taste 
of  their  owner;  when  every  one  was  esteemed, 
not  according  to  his  share  in  the  means  of 
production,  but  according  to  his  own  powers 
of  production — only  then  would  the  way  be 
prepared  for  a  really  beautiful  life. 

Of  course,  even  in  such  conditions,  it  is  not 
every  one  who  would  be  able  to  make  life 
beautiful.  All  hindrances  to  the  realisation 
of  happiness  that  proceed  from  the  personality 
itself,  hindrances  that  are  derived  either  from 


262         The  Younger  Generation 

a  heavy  or  a  light  temperament,  either  from 
a  hard  or  from  an  over-refined  disposition, 
either  from  too  much  frost  or  from  too  much 
fire;  all  the  complications  arising  from  tem- 
perament or  circumstances,  between  heart 
and  duty,  between  thought  and  feeling,  be- 
tween the  individuality  and  society;  all  these 
hindrances  and  complications  will  still  remain 
even  when  the  economic  stress  is  removed. 
In  a  word,  psychical  laws  will  continue  to 
operate  just  as  much  as  the  physical  laws 
of  nature;  and  both  psychical  and  physi- 
cal laws  in  their  inflexible  course  will  of- 
ten render  happiness  impossible  or  produce 
suffering. 

And  new  sufferings  will  arise  as  the  conse- 
quences, at  present  unknown,  of  new  condi- 
tions. These  new  forms  of  suffering  as  well 
as  the  old  ones  may,  moreover,  be  felt  more 
keenly,  when  we  have  more  leisure  for  being 
impressed  by  pain.  But  all  our  sufferings 
might  become  more  personal,  more  noble, 
when  they  were  not,  as  is  now  so  often  the 
case,  caused  by  or  connected  with  the  struggle 
for  livelihood. 

In  a  reformed  society  nothing  will  prove 
to  be  perfect.  But  everything  may  acquire 
a  starting-point,  based  upon  more  real  values, 


The  Few  and  the  Many         263 

for  continued  development.  The  belief  that 
they  were  advancing  towards  something  better 
would  heighten  every  one's  enjoyment  of 
life,  whereas  now  a  doubt  of  all  life's  val- 
ues is  one  of  the  profoundest  causes  of 
weariness. 

It  happens  not  unfrequently  that  the  indi- 
vidual, after  some  serious  crisis  in  his  life, 
considers  all  his  spiritual  resources  exhausted 
and  thinks  he  has  no  more  strength  to  suffer 
or  to  love.  But  to  his  surprise  new  powers 
grow  up  from  the  mysterious,  unknown  depths 
of  his  own  soul.  As  with  the  individual,  so 
it  is  with  mankind. 

There  have  been  periods  of  its  history  when 
men  have  believed  themselves  faced  by  a  close, 
whereas  they  actually  stood  at  a  beginning. 
And  those  who  were  preparing  this  beginning 
were  just  the  ones  who  were  thought  to  be 
hastening  the  end. 

If  at  a  Roman  banquet  under  the  Empire  a 
Stoical  philosopher  turned  the  conversation 
to  the  abolition  of  slavery;  or  if  the  chaplain 
of  a  feudal  castle  hinted  that  the  serfs  could 
work  better  in  different  circumstances ;  or  if  a 
philanthropist  in  a  French  court  circle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  spoke  of  the  rights  of  the 
people — what  answer  did  they  receive?  That 


264        The  Younger  Generation 

any  abolition  of  existing  circumstances  would 
destroy  society  and  civilisation,  which  the 
speakers  unconsciously  identified  with  their 
own  supremacy.  But  we  know  that  all  these 
conditions  of  labour  and  production  have 
nevertheless  been  transformed;  we  know  that 
each  time  new  forces,  till  then  unused,  have 
appeared,  and  that  the  material  has  been  cast 
into  new  shapes,  till  then  unknown.  And 
there  is  no  reason  to  despair  of  humanity's 
continued  power  of  renewal. 

Two  artists  have  drawn  for  us  what  may  be 
and  what  is. 

Every  one  knows  Guido  Reni's  Aurora,  in 
which  the  god  of  day  advances  across  the  sky, 
while  the  Hours  move  round  him  in  a  joyful, 
majestic,  graceful  dance.  Our  contemporary, 
Walter  Crane,  on  the  other  hand,  has  repre- 
sented the  Cavalcade  of  the  Hours  at  the 
present  time  in  the  likeness  of  charioteers 
driving  their  teams  with  furious  lashes  of  the 
whip  and  dashing  past  each  other  in  a  wild 
race. 

When  the  hours  of  the  day  again  appear  as 
the  Renaissance  artist  saw  them,  treading 
the  dance  with  ivory  feet  and  beautiful, 
restrained  gestures — then  will  life  once  more 
be  worth  living. 


The  Few  and  the  Many          265 

10.     The  Reconciliation  of  Egoism  and  Fellow- 
Feeling 

In  a  society  in  which,  since  the  conditions 
of  existence  were  secured,  the  aim  was  the 
creation  not  of  capital  but  of  culture,  it  would 
be  possible  to  use  all  means  for  developing 
individuality — if  it  was  seen  to  be  threatened 
by  levelling — and  to  use  them  as  zealously 
as  the  education  of  home,  school,  and  society 
is  now  used  to  extinguish  individuality. 

When  the  wild  competitive  struggle  for 
existence  no  longer  snatches  the  women  from 
home,  the  majority  will  once  more  find  a  field 
of  work  there.  In  a  society  in  which  every 
one  could  freely  seek  the  work  that  he  found 
most  desirable,  aptitude  alone  would  draw  a 
distinction  between  man's  and  woman's  work. 
We  should  see  all  women  taking  some  part  in 
the  government  of  society,  and  many  devoting 
themselves  to  public  affairs.  But  most  of  them 
would  probably  find  they  had  work  enough 
in  the  capacity  of  wives,  mothers,  and  house- 
keepers. In  the  last-named  case  we  may 
expect  their  work  to  be  simplified,  both  by  a 
more  collective  arrangement  of  labour  and 
by  constant  improvements,  but  on  the  whole 
it  would  demand  more  personal  work  on  the 


266         The  Younger  Generation 

part  of  all,  as  there  would  be  no  special  domes- 
tic servants.  This  does  not,  however,  preclude 
the  possibility  of  a  practical  field  of  work 
being  found  for  many  women  in  those  homes 
from  which  the  housewife  herself  was  called 
away  by  some  public  employment. 

Most  wives  and  mothers,  however,  would 
doubtless  regard  the  realisation  of  married 
life  and  the  bringing-up  of  their  children  as 
their  great  social  work,  their  science  and  their 
art.  The  training  of  children  must  by  degrees 
become  as  different  from  that  of  the  present 
day  as  the  latter  is  from  that  of  the  cave- 
dwellers.  The  parents  at  home,  masters  and 
mistresses  at  school,  would  all  work  together 
in  finding  out  and  developing  individual  apti- 
tudes, when  once  it  had  been  seen  that  the 
present  school  system  is  their  death,  not  their 
development.  And  the  programme  of  social- 
ism— the  same  schools  for  all — must  be  altered 
in  such  a  way  that  higher  education  became 
possible  for  all,  but  was  communicated  in  a 
number  of  schools  differing  among  themselves; 
or  preferably  no  "schools"  at  all,  but  a  num- 
ber of  small  groups,  in  which  the  teachers 
would  have  perfect  freedom  to  work  with 
different  methods  towards  the  same  end — the 
development  of  personality.  The  greatest 


The  Few  and  the  Many         267 

freedom  of  choice,  leisure  for  absorbing  im- 
pressions and  for  private  study,  the  best 
material  and  the  most  excellent  personal 
assistance  would  co-operate  towards  this  end. 
And  it  could  be  reached  in  a  community 
whose  whole  endeavour  was  to  cultivate  indi- 
viduality, to  discover  special  powers  and  put 
them  in  the  place  where  they  would  be  most 
effective.  The  task  would  then  be,  first  to 
allow  all  to  assimilate  a  certain  measure  of 
general  education,  in  order  thereby  to  develop 
the  whole  personality,  but  above  all  the 
strongest  part  of  it,  the  individual  aptitude; 
and  then  to  direct  this  aptitude  to  its  special 
object.  Now  general  education  is  a  hindrance 
to  professional  training,  as  it  is  to  individual 
development,  and  vice  versa.  But  the  experi- 
ence that  a  weak  general  education  to  a  certain 
extent  impedes  the  progress  of  the  technically 
trained,  and  a  retarded  special  training  that 
of  the  generally  educated,  must  involve  the 
most  strenuous  efforts  to  solve  the  problem  in 
such  a  way  that  both  branches  of  education 
may  be  given  their  full  rights,  when  the  time 
arrives  at  which  the  training  of  the  younger 
generation  becomes,  in  reality  and  not  merely 
in  school  orations,  the  vital  question  of 
society. 


268         The  Younger  Generation 

But  only  a  society  transformed  from  the 
foundation  can  afford  the  leisure  and  the 
means  for  thus  at  the  same  time  promoting 
general  education  and  cultivating  individual- 
ity. Mistakes  would  of  course  occur  even 
then.  But  he  who,  by  the  error  of  himself 
or  others,  had  taken  the  wrong  road,  would 
have,  after  an  individual  training,  far  more 
reserve  force  for  making  a  new  road  for  him- 
self than  he  has  now  in  similar  circumstances. 

Besides  all  the  possibilities  here  alluded  to 
of  a  richer  individual  cultivation  in  altered 
conditions,  there  is  that  of  enhancing  our 
enjoyment  of  life  by  developing  our  fellow- 
feeling.  Hereby,  too,  a  prospect  is  opened 
up  that  our  own  enjoyment  of  life  may  be 
infinitely  increased  through  sympathy  with 
others'  perceptions  of  life,  a  sympathy  which 
is  continually  deadened  by  the  present  labour 
system  based  entirely  on  egoism  and  com- 
petition. 

This  great  and  rich  fellow-feeling  is  some- 
thing quite  different  from  the  pity  which 
Nietzsche — though  unjustly — asserts  to  be 
the  mark  of  the  slavish  soul.  We  find  this 
great  fellow-feeling  in  the  real  heroes  of 
humanity,  who  in  some  form  or  other  have 
all  been  helpers  of  the  weak.  They  have 


The  Few  and  the  Many         269 

possessed  both  the  individual  and  the  social 
will,  both  originality  and  universality;  they 
have  been  at  the  same  time  realists  and  ideal- 
ists, lovers  of  liberty  and  philanthropists,  or, 
in  a  word,  incarnate  prophecies  of  the  final 
harmony  of  humanity,  shining  proofs  of  its 
boundless  possibilities  of  perfection.  The 
hope  of  this  final  harmony,  in  the  realisation 
of  which  socialism  is  only  one  of  many  transi- 
tional factors,  this  hope  it  is  that  at  great, 
historic  periods  of  renewal  has  shed  its  glory 
over  the  age.  Men  have  heard  again  the 
voices  of  the  prophets  and  of  Christianity, 
promising  a  millennium  in  which  those  who 
have  reaped  the  corn  shall  eat  it  and  those 
who  have  gathered  the  wine  shall  drink  it; 
where  the  voice  of  weeping  shall  be  no  more 
heard;  where  one  shall  not  build  and  another 
inhabit,  and  where  every  man  shall  sit  under 
his  own  vine.  At  such  times  the  greatest 
spirits  have  been  those  who  appeared  in  the 
noble  image  of  a  giant,  forcing  his  own  way 
with  one  arm,  and  with  the  other  raising  his 
wounded  comrade — instead  of  using  both 
arms  to  cut  his  own  passage,  or  both  to  carry 
and  bind  up  the  wounded. 

We  live  in  one  of  these  great  epochs.     The 
battle  is  still  raging  between  individualism, 


270         The  Younger  Generation 

which  demands  room  for  the  few,  and  social- 
ism, which  claims  it  for  the  many.  When  it 
comes  to  action  in  the  existing  phase,  it  is 
the  spokesmen  of  the  many  who  at  present 
have  the  most  important  contribution  to 
make.  I  will  sum  up  my  train  of  thought  in 
an  image,  which  I  have  used  once  before  in 
another  connection,  but  which  is  suggestive 
in  more  than  one  respect.  A  traveller  in  the 
desert  was  asked  by  his  guide  in  the  silence 
of  the  night  whether  he  did  not  hear  deep 
sighs.  "Who  should  be  sighing?"  asked  the 
traveller.  "The  desert,"  answered  his  guide; 
"the  desert  it  is  that  sighs  with  longing  to 
become  a  meadow." 

It  is  the  sigh  of  this  great,  uniform  desert, 
still  unfertile  for  culture,  that  our  time,  with 
socialism  as  its  guide,  has  learned  to  hear. 
When  the  desert  has  once  been  transformed 
into  a  meadow,  there  may  be  a  danger  that 
the  solitary  trees  will  be  forced  out  by  a 
dense  wilderness  of  grass.  But  so  long  as 
the  sandy  waste  extends  between  one  oasis 
and  another,  the  uneasy  murmurs  of  the  trees 
there  growing  are  less  important  than  the 
sighing  of  the  desert. 


Jk  Selection  from  the 
Catalogue  of 

C.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Complete  Catalogue  sent 
on  application 


The  Renaissance  of 
Motherhood 

By  Ellen  Key 

Author  of  "  Love  and  Marriage,"  "  The  Century  of 
the  Child,"  etc. 

72°.     $125  net 

In  this  volume,  the  author  of  "  Love 
and  Marriage"  considers  certain  prob- 
lems connected  with  woman's  most  im- 
portant mission.  She  calls  the  attention 
of  an  age  that  is  the  victim  of  divergent 
interests  to  the  ancient  claim  of  the  child 
upon  the  mother,  a  claim  that  represents 
the  most  elemental  of  altruistic  bonds. 
Ellen  Key  points  out  that  motherhood 
and  the  care  of  children  is  woman's  pre- 
rogative, and  that  the  division  of  labor 
between  the  sexes  is  a  natural  one.  An 
interesting  suggestion  toward  the  solu- 
tion of  certain  social  problems  is  made  in 
the  form  of  a  proposed  subsidizing  of 
motherhood. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


By  ELLEN 


The  Century  of  the  Child 

O.6°.     With  Frontispiece.    Net  $150.     By  mail 
$1.65 

CONTENTS:  The  Right  of  the  Child  to  Choose  His 
Parents,  The  Unborn  Race  and  Woman's  Work,  Education, 
Homelesstiess,  Soul  Murder  in  the  Schools,  The  School  of 
the  Future,  Religious  Instruction,  Child  Labor  and  the 
Crimes  of  Children.  This  book  has  gone  through  more 
than  twenty  German  Editions  and  has  been  published  in 
several  European  countries. 

"A  powerful  book."— N.  Y.  Times. 

"A  profound  and  analytical  discussion  by  a  great  Scandinavian 
teacher,  of  the  reasons  why  modern  education  doe*  not  better 
educate."— AT.  Y.  Christian  Herald. 

The  Education  of  the  Child 

Reprinted  from  the  Authorized  American  Edition  of 
The  Century  of  the  Child.  With  Introductory  Note  by 
EDWARD  BOE. 

Cr.  5°.    Net  75  cents.    By  mail  85  cents 

"Nothing  finer  on  the  wise  education  of  the  child  has  ever  been 
brought  into  print.  To  me  this  chapter  is  a  perfect  classic;  it  points 
Che  way  straight  for  every  parent,  and  it  should  find  a  place  in  every 
borne  in  America  where  there  is  a  child."— EDWARD  BOK,  Editor 
of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal. 

"This  book,  by  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  students  of  child  life 
among  current  writers,  is  one  that  will  prove  invaluable  to  parents 
who  desire  to  develop  in  their  children  that  strength  of  character, 
•elf -control  and  personality  that  alone  makes  for*  well-rounded  use- 
ful and  happy  life."— Baltimore  Sun. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


By  ELLEN 


Love  and  Marriage 

Cr.  6°.    Net  $150.    By  mail,  $1.65 

"  One  of  the  prof oundest  and  most  important  pronouncements  of 
the  woman's  movement  that  has  yet  found  expression.  .  .  .  Intensely 
modern  in  her  attitude,  Miss  Key  has  found  a  place  for  all  the 
conflicting  philosophies  of  the  day,  has  taken  what  is  good  from  each, 
has  affected  the  compromise,  which  is  always  the  road  to  advance- 
ment, between  individualism  and  socialism,  realism  and  idealism, 
morality  and  the  new  thought.  She  is  more  than  a  metaphysical 
philosopher.  She  is  a  seer,  a  prophet.  She  brings  to  her  aid 
psychology,  history,  science,  and  then  something  more — inspiration 
and  hope." — Boston  Transcript. 

The  Woman  Movement 

Translated  by  Namah  Bouton  Borthwick,  A.M. 
With  an  Introduction  by  Havelock  Ellis 

72°.     Net  $1.50.     By  mail,  $1.65 

This  is  not  a  history  of  the  woman's  movement,  but  a  statement 
of  what  Ellen  Key  considers  to  be  the  new  phase  it  is  now  entering 
on,  a  phase  in  which  the  claim  to  exert  the  rights  and  functions  of 
men  is  less  important  than  the  claims  of  woman's  rights  as  the 
mother  and  educator  of  the  coming  generation. 

Rahel  Varnhagen 

A  Portrait 

Translated  by  Arthur  E.  Chater 

With  an  Introduction  by  Havelock  Ellis 

12°.    With  Portraits.    Net  $150.    By  mail,  $1.65 

A  biography  from  original  sources  of  one  who  has  been  described 
as  among  the  first  and  greatest  of  modern  women.  The  book  is  a 
portrait  sketch  of  Rahel  Varnhagen,  and  her  characteristics,  as  "  a 
prophecy  of  the  woman  of  the  future,"  are  illustrated  by  copious 
extracts  from  her  correspondence. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


Ellen  Key 

Her  Life  and  Her  Work 

A  Critical  Study 
By  Louise  Nystrom  Hamilton 

Translated  by  Anna  E.  B.  Friea 
12°.     With  Portrait       $1.25  net. 

The  name  of  Ellen  Key  has  for  years  been 
a  target  for  attacks  of  various  kinds.  Friends 
have  in  connection  with  the  issues  that  have 
arisen  in  regard  to  the  ^  influence  of  her  work 
become  enemies  and  friction  has  been  caused 
in  many  homes.  Her  ideals  and  her  purposes 
have  been  misquoted  and  misinterpreted  until 
the  very  convictions  for  which  she  stood  have 
been  twisted  so  as  to  appear  to  be  the  evils  that 
she  was  attempting  to  combat.  Her  critics,  not 
content  with  decrying  and  distorting  the  mes- 
sage that  she  had  to  give  to  the  world,  have 
even  attacked  her  personal  character;  and  as 
the  majority  of  these  had  no  direct  knowledge 
in  the  matter,  strange  rumors  and  fancies  have 
been  spread  abroad  about  her  life.  The 
readers  of  her  books,  who  are  now  to  be 
counted  throughout  the  world  by  the  hundreds 
of  thousands,  who  desire  to  know  the  truth 
about  this  much  discussed  Swedish  author, 
will  be  interested  in  this  critical  study  by 
Louise  Hamilton.  The  author  is  one  who  has 
been  intimate  with  Ellen  Key  since  her  youth. 
She  is  herself  the  wife  of  the  founder  of  the 
People's  Institute  inStockholm,where  for  over 
twenty  years  Ellen  Key  taught  and  lectured. 

The  volume  gives  an  admirable  survey  of 
the  purpose  and  character  of  Ellen  Key's 
teachings  and  of  her  books. 

New  York         G.  P.  Putnam's  SOUS          London 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


LD-LRU 

f 

REC'O 


LD-f 

JUL  131984 

REC'D  LD-»mC 

AUG  0  2  1984 

/:,  UMWL 


BRITTLE 

Form  L9-Serie8  444 


REJECTED  BY  BINDERY 


llbtS   UUUcM    0492 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  454  537    o 


